Carthage police say an eight-month-old child is missing after two men broke into a north Carthage home, assaulted the father of the child, ransacked the home and took the child.
The incident happened before 2 a.m. on Friday. Carthage Police issued an Amber Alert for eight-month-old Eddie Alegandro Salazar, described as about three feet tall, weighing about 20 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes and wearing a blue short-sleeved body suit, and white socks. Police say the boy has a birthmark the shape of a lung on his right arm.
Carthage Police Chief Greg Dagnan said officers spent the night verifying that this was a real kidnapping and gathering information.
“We try to verify this kind of thing before we send out an Amber Alert,” Dagnan said. “We know the effectiveness of these alerts is lost if we send out lots of alerts that aren’t real so we try vigorously to verify everything we can before sending one out.”
Dagnan said police are not sure why the two masked men broke into the home on the north side of Carthage or whether their intentions were to take the child all along.
“We know there was forcible entry and people were assaulted in the home,” Dagnan said. “Whether the intent was to take the child in the first place, that was the end result.”
Police said the men knocked the father unconscious before ransacking the home and taking the child.
“We’ve spent all night talking to family members and trying to find any connection to anyone who might have wanted to take the child,” Dagnan said. “But to tell you names of suspects, I can’t do that right now.”
