How Tenn. police tracked down the missing 4-year-old NC girl at center of Amber Alert
BELLE MEADE, Tenn. (WECT) - A fateful stop at a Nashville McDonald’s led to a chain of events that helped Tennessee law enforcement find a missing four-year-old Brunswick County girl at the center of Wednesday’s nationwide Amber Alert.
Just before 6:30 a.m., the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office issued a Silver Alert for Elijah Muhammad McFarland, 37, and said he told family members that he was taking his daughter, Aubrey McFarland, to California. An Amber Alert would be issued for Aubrey later that afternoon.
Sgt. Jon Carter with the Belle Meade Police Department in Tennessee said the pair stopped at a McDonald’s in Nashville, where Elijah Muhammad offered a couple money to use their cell phone. McFarland made a call to a family member in North Carolina, who then alerted the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office.
Brunswick County sheriff’s officials called the number back and spoke to the couple who decided to follow McFarland as he left the restaurant.
Carter said from there, a lot of “phone tag” was involved as several Tennessee law enforcement agencies, including Belle Meade police and the Nashville Metro police, coordinated their efforts in an attempt to find McFarland.
Law enforcement eventually located his burgundy Chrysler P.T. Cruiser and conducted a traffic stop at the corner of Belle Meade Boulevard and Harding Pike near the city of Belle Meade, a suburb of Nashville.
Carter said McFarland was arrested without incident and Aubrey was found “safe and happy” inside the vehicle. Aubrey was able to speak to her mother over the phone and was released into the custody of some of the mother’s family members who live in Nashville.
McFarland is currently jailed in Tenn. on probation-related charges out of North Carolina. He’s listed as an absconder on the N.C. Department of Public Safety’s website and was serving probation after he was convicted in a pair of 2019 robberies in New Hanover and Brunswick counties.
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