THE DAD and grandfather of a missing girl found under their stairs after two years were pictured outside the home on Wednesday only two days after their arrest.
A woman at the home told The Sun that they are a “traumatized family” after Paislee Shultis, 6, was found by police in a secret room hidden under the basement stairs in her grandfather’s house.
The girl’s mom, 33-year-old Kimberly Cooper, was also hiding in the “small, cold and wet space” in the upstate New York home.
She was taken into custody and charged with custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child over Paislee’s disappearance two years ago.
Paislee’s father, Kirk Shultis Jr, 33, and grandfather, Kirk Shultis Sr, 57, were also reportedly in the house as police made the shocking discovery.
Kirk Shultis Jr was charged with the felony of custodial interference and the misdemeanor of endangering the welfare of a child.
His father also received a felony charge of custodial interference and the misdemeanor of endangering the welfare of a child.
The father and son were released with appearance tickets while Cooper remains in jail as she was already wanted on an active warrant before Monday’s arrest.
The Shultis family was seen on Wednesday leaving the house ahead of a court appearance that afternoon in relation to the charges.
The two men left the house in hoodies and brown jackets accompanied by an unidentified woman.
They both got into a red car parked in front of the house.
Paislee was reported missing on July 13, 2019, from Cayuga Heights, New York, when she was four years old.
Her parents had reportedly lost custody of their two daughters and authorities had been scheduled to pick the girls up on that day, the Daily Freeman reports.
While Paislee’s older sister was in school, the couple allegedly fled with their youngest daughter.
Police now claim they were hiding Paislee in Kirk Sr’s home in Saugerties – 150 miles away from where she went missing – for the last two years, despite multiple searches of the house.
Kirk Sr had told police he had not seen his grandaughter since she was reported missing.
Yet authorities received a tip on Monday that she was in the house and they conducted another search.
Saugerties police detectives, uniformed officers, state police detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and uniformed state troopers executed the warrant at 8pm on Monday.
An officer reportedly noticed something strange about the stairs after hours of searching and began to pull it up.
As they began to remove the steps, detectives reportedly saw “a pair of tiny feet.”
Underneath, they found a “small, cold and wet” space with mother and daughter hidden.
Cops say that Paislee had remained quiet while officers were searching the home for around four hours on Monday before she was discovered.
They added that it appeared obvious the hidden room was used frequently.
The young girl was taken to police headquarters where she was met by paramedics.
Police say she appeared “well taken care of and in good health.”
Paislee has now reportedly been reconnected with her legal guardian, who remains unidentified, at an undisclosed location.
She has also been reunited with her older sister, who the young girl said she still remembered.
Cops treated Paislee to a Happy Meal after her escape from the house after she spotted a McDonald’s from the car and said she hadn’t had one in a long time.
“The detective turned the car around and went into McDonald’s and got her food from McDonald’s,” Sinagra said.
After Paislee and her parents initially disappeared, Kirk Jr “resurfaced shortly afterward, cops said.
He claimed that Cooper had fled to Pennsylvania and he did not know where she and his daughter were.
“He’s even gone to court and told the court he had no idea where the child was,” Sinagra said.
“It’s nice to know that the child’s been located and that the child is healthy and safe. That’s the most important thing at the end of the day.”
Poice said that on several occasions they “received leads that [Paislee] was at that house.
“A number of times we would go there and sometimes we were met with resistance and at other times they’d say, ‘oh, no, you can come in and look around. There’s nobody here. The child’s not here,'” Singra claimed.
“And our belief is that at times when we went into the residence, although we were given limited access, they were using this location to hide the child,” he added.
Cooper, Shultis Jr, and Sr are scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday at 3pm.
The father and son’s mugs show them dead-eyed while Cooper appeared to smirk.
Police say the investigation is ongoing and additional arrests are still pending.
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