Reading Police Report Child Safe and Accused Killer Captured

Reading Police Department, Berks County, have reported that an infant allegedly abducted has been found, and the alleged abductor is in custody.  This was confirmed 5pm local time yesterday.

Pennsylvania State Police at Mercer had issued an Amber Child Abduction Alert at 3pm, Saturday.  Since the apprehension of suspect, Antonio Velazquez-Rupert, 36, the alert was cancelled.  Velazquez-Rupert is also a suspect in a murder investigation.

The infant was abducted from an apartment complex in Mercer County.

Online court records show that Velazquez-Rupert has been charged by Sharon Police Department with one count of criminal homicide, kidnapping, and interference with the custody of children.  He is awaiting a preliminary hearing.

However, there is no information on if the abducted child and a woman found dead in the apartment complex in Mercer County are connected.  The only information that has been confirmed is that the baby is fine.  Police are not ruling whether this is a murder investigation until after a cause of death has been established.

The autopsy date is yet to be announced and won’t be until investigators finish processing the scene.

It is understood that the woman, yet to be named suffered a severe head injury.  It is believed she knew Velazquez-Rupert.

Velazquez-Rupert was out on bail, on a $50,000 unsecured bond.  He was on a charge of simple assault and was awaiting trial at Mercer County Court of Common Pleas, according to online court records.

The incident occurred in Sharon, on June 2^nd 2016, and Sharon Police department filed the charge.  Court records have shed further light on the Sharon incident in that Velazquez-Rupert, waived his right to a hearing on the charge on October 12th, when he appeared before Magisterial District Judge Songer and was ordered held for trial on the charge.

Further developments will not occur before the autopsy and cause of death is established on the dead woman.