EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH, La. — The Louisiana man arrested in connection with an Amber Alert issued Tuesday afternoon had been working as a Louisiana Department of Corrections officer at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, just outside of Baton Rouge.
East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s deputies took Ariel Anderson, 26, into custody for questioning Tuesday as a person of interest in the disappearance of a 12-year-old Houston girl.
East Baton Rouge jail records indicate he’s facing a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Louisiana. Houston Police said they're investigating Anderson for felony kidnapping.
The Louisiana Department of Corrections confirms Anderson had been working as a correctional officer for the state since September 2023.
Ken Pastorick, Communications Director for LaDOC, said, “The Department of Public Safety and Corrections separated employment with Ariel Anderson” on Tuesday.
Arrest records show the 12-year-old's mother reported her missing from Houston after she left in her mother's vehicle without permission early in the morning Tuesday. The mother used a location-tracking app to find her daughter's cell phone location at a hotel in Houston.
An arrest affidavit says the girl and Anderson were caught on surveillance video together at the hotel in Houston and later at his apartment complex in Baton Rouge. After friends told him his picture was featured on the news related to the Amber Alert, he drove the girl back to Houston Tuesday afternoon.
According to an arrest affidavit, Anderson told East Baton Rouge Sheriff's investigators he thought the girl was 18 or 19 years old.
Again, Houston Police said Anderson is being investigated there for felony kidnapping, but their investigation is ongoing.
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