NEW ORLEANS, June 6 (UPI) -- A 29-year-old man from a New Orleans suburb is charged in the kidnapping and rape of a 7-year-old girl, police said.

Jefferson Parish deputies said Steven David Carter, of Kenner, was booked on one count of aggravated kidnapping of a child and one count of aggravated rape, The Times-Picayune reported Thursday.


The child was kidnapped Wednesday afternoon from an apartment complex in Metairie by a man who entered through a broken gate, officials said.

As deputies began their investigation, a woman who lived more than two miles away from the scene of the abduction called 911 to report that a child in her front yard had told her she had been kidnapped by man.

The girl was reunited with her mother. Information from the child allowed deputies to identify the suspect as Carter, who was tracked to an apartment in New Orleans and arrested.