1-Year Old Royalty Grisby Found Safe After Being Kidnapped In Atlanta Car Theft
A mother is experiencing unbelievable relief this morning after her one-year-old daughter was found safe after their car was stolen while the infant remained inside.
Early Thursday (March 18), a Levi’s Call (Georgia’s Amber Alert system) was issued after reports of Elizabeth Grisby’s SUV being stolen with her daughter still inside. The alert went out five hours after her daughter was kidnapped.
According to Dekalb Police Chief Mirtha Ramos, 12 hours after the kidnapping, one-year old, Royalty Grisby, was finally located. Ramos added during the Thursday afternoon news conference that someone passing by in Lithonia, GA heard the baby crying onhe porch of a Stoneleigh Hill Road home.
The passerby immediately called 911 after realizing that Royalty matched the description of the Levi’s Call. Royalty was taken to the hospital for a check-up after being reunited with her mother.
The 14-year-old suspect, Malachi Richardson, was taken into custody after being located off Bolton Road in Atlanta, earlier in the day. Police are under the belief that Royalty was left on the porch by someone other than Richardson who was being arrested roughly 25 miles from where Royalty was found.
Chief Ramos believes Grisby was set up. She was out delivering food for Doordash early Thursday morning when she left her SUV engine running with her daughter inside. Ramos thinks Richardson placed the food delivery with the intention of robbing the driver, without realizing Grisby was traveling with her child.
“I had my keys in my pocket, and the only reason I didn’t lock the door was because I was in a residential neighborhood, a nice neighborhood,” Grisby said. “I didn’t think anything would happen.”
Grisby lost her job last year working as a server in a restaurant and when her unemployment ran out, she began working with food delivery services to make ends meet. It was an opportunity for her to work and stay with her child, who she did not want to put into daycare for fear of the pandemic.
