Justo Smoker, 34, has been arrested and charged with kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos, 18. She was reported missing from her Amish community after she did not arrive to a June 21 church service. NBC10’s Stephania Jimenez reports.
A man was arrested in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Friday and accused of kidnapping the young Amish woman who has been missing since Father's Day.
But the missing Linda Stoltzfoos, 18, has not been found, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office said in a news release Saturday.
Police in East Lampeter Township on Friday arrested Justo Smoker, 34, of Paradise, Pennsylvania, the DA's office said. He is charged with felony kidnapping and a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment.
Investigators still don't know what happened to Stoltzfoos but believe she was harmed after she was abducted. Her father realized something was wrong when she did not arrive to an evening youth group where she was expected. Police later recovered surveillance video that showed Stoltzfoos being abducted on the side of Beechdale Road, where she was walking home from church.
The footage, which the FBI helped enhance, showed a red Kia Rio. Multiple witnesses told police they saw a woman in Amish garb in the passenger seat of that car. Police say it was Smoker's.
On June 23, two days after Stoltzfoos went missing, investigators went to a rural, wooded area in Ronks, a small farming community, where they believed she was taken. The Kia Rio was parked at the scene, police said.
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In the woods, detectives unearthed buried clothes that they believe belonged to Stoltzfoos.
Smoker was arraigned Saturday, and Judge Joshua Keller ordered him held without bail.
Investigators from the East Lampeter Township Police, the DA's office and the FBI are still learning more about what happened after Stoltzfoos was abducted.
Anyone who might have seen Smoker - or his red Kia Rio sedan - around the time Stoltzfoos was abducted, and in the days after, should contact police at 717-291-4676.
