HEUVELTON, N.Y. -- Two Amish girls who authorities feared were abducted are back at their home, St. Lawrence County District Attorney Mary Rain just confirmed.

No one has been taken into custody, she said.

She said 12-year-old Fannie Miller and her 7-year-old sister Delila were dropped off by someone near a home in Richville, which is roughly 15 miles away from their Mt. Alone Road home. The children knocked on the door and said they wanted to go home. They were given a lift to their home.

The children arrived home about 25 hours after they disappeared, healthy and in good condition, Rain said.



WWNY-TV is reporting that the two girls were abducted by two men, who earlier this evening took them to a home in Bigelow, a hamlet near Richville, and left them there, telling the girls not to leave.

Instead, the girls fled, and went looking for help, Rain said.

They knocked on the door of a house belonging to a man a source identifies as Jeff Stinson, a small engine repairman, who recognized them as the abducted girls and returned them to their home. The girls arrived home around 8:55 p.m., Rain said

The search continues for the men who abducted the girls. Investigators still do not have a license plate number, Rain said.

The girls are being questioned by an investigator from the FBI and a sheriff's investigator, said Rain.

"I can't wait until they arrest these people, if there's more than one, because I would love an opportunity to prosecute them," she said.

State Sen. Patty Ritchie said Thursday night she had spoken with authorities about the missing girls. Ritchie said the girls "were definitely taken" and that authorities had not yet found the two men who took them.

The St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office canceled the Amber Alert for the girls at 9:47 p.m.

Police in St. Lawrence County, in Northern New York, have been frantically searching for the girls since Wednesday evening, when they were reported missing and an Amber Alert was issued.

Fannie and Delila vanished from their family's farm stand at their home while 13 family members were milking cows nearby in a barn, Rain said. The Miller family's barns are behind their large white house.

A neighbor down the road saw a light-colored four-door vehicle at the stand. The witness saw a man putting something in the back seat before getting into the back seat himself, Rain said. The witness did not see the girls at all, Rain said.

Relatives quickly called the police.

Rain said earlier today that investigators were "fairly confident" an abduction led to the girls' disappearance. Investigators had ruled out several possibilities, including "wandering off" or hiding in an outbuilding, said Rain.

As the day wore on, hopes for the girls' safe return began to wane. A representative from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was at the Command Center, citing statistics that the longer a child is missing, the less chance they'll be safely found, said Rain.

Police agencies had been searching unsuccessfully all day. As evening approached, new teams of volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel - 130 in all - were assigned to search more roadsides in a five-mile radius from the Miller's home, said Michael Macaulay, a Heuvelton firefighter. The teams weren't out 15 minutes when they were called back and told the girls had been found.

"To see this outcome, the girls returned safe and sound, everybody's happy," he said.

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