Police in Fort Worth, Texas, arrested an illegal immigrant and charged him with kidnapping and raping a six-year-old girl, reports reveal.

The child disappeared from her home in southeast Fort Worth sometime early in the morning of October 8, her parents said. A quick search party was organized but the child was not found until about 2 PM when someone heard screams coming from a patch of woods nearby.

Police say Edis Moya Alas, a 35-year-old El Salvadorian national, kidnapped the girl from her home and took her to an area near Titus Park were he then raped her, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Police were unsure how Alas knew of the girl or how he gained access to the home.

“The young child immediately saw police officers and ran towards us. She was very scared. She was very nervous,” police officials told NewsFix. “We owe a great debt to the citizen that actually heard the screams and notified us to go into that field area.”

The child’s parents said they all went to bed at around 10 PM on Friday night but the victim’s father had discovered the front door to the home standing open and his daughter missing sometime after 4 AM.

After being apprehended, Immigration Customs Enforcement officials told the Fort Worth Police that Alas was in the U.S. illegally.

Alas is currently housed in the Mansfield jail on a $200,000 bond.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.