The woman accused of orchestrating a kidnapping hoax in Rock Island was arrested in Wisconsin Thursday evening.
Just after 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30, Princess Illunga, 37, was arrested in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, after a traffic stop by the Wisconsin State Patrol. She was originally pulled over for suspended registration and an equipment violation, according to a news release.
Illunga, the driver, was taken into custody on the basis of an outstanding warrant in Rock Island County, where she is wanted for filing a false police report after claiming her 4-year-old daughter, Blessing Aoci, was kidnapped as a result of a car theft.
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The search for Blessing was a community effort a few weeks ago, after Illunga phoned police just after 6 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 16 to report that her car had been stolen while it was left running in front of her home. She also claimed Blessing was inside the vehicle at the time.
An extensive nine-hour search was conducted until Blessing was found outside her residence just before 3 p.m. that same day. An investigation was conducted as to Blessing's whereabouts and it was determined that Ilunga intentionally hid Blessing inside the residence for the duration of the search.
During a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 30, Rock Island Police Chief Tim McCloud said Blessing was in her home during the entire search and that investigators saw her in the house, but did not recognize her as her clothes had changed. Blessing's mother, Ilunga, passed Blessing off as a different daughter, using Blessing's Swahili name Baraka.
Initially, McCloud said, the mom refused to let officers search the house for Blessing. McCloud said she spoke to the officers in English, but instructed her other children in Swahili to take off Blessing's pink coat and to only refer to her Swahili name. Ilunga has seven kids, McCloud said, and the family has been in the United States for about seven to eight years.
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At one point, McCloud said, the mother pointed to Baraka and said that Blessing looks like her sister. The mom also advised officers not to speak with the daughter that she referred to as Baraka, he said, since she was too young and did not speak very well.
Officers only had the one photo of Blessing to go off of, McCloud said, and they had to reach out to the school district to obtain the photo.
The department has an officer who speaks fluent Swahili, McCloud said, who worked to determine what happened and also reviewed the body camera footage and determined that Blessing's mom was lying to law enforcement from the beginning. A detective was assigned as a liaison for Blessing's mom, he said, and body camera and other evidence shows that she continued to keep the lie going.
"It was only when our detective had to run back to the station that Ms. Ilunga seized her opportunity, put the pink coat back on to Blessing and took her outside into the alley, where she was found shortly thereafter by a citizen," McCloud said.
Following the discovery, the family stopped cooperating with the investigation and the department did not know where they were. That same evening, Illunga was arrested in Wisconsin and all seven of her children were located in the vehicle at the time of the stop.
They were later taken to the Lake Mills Police Department to be cared for until arrangements could be made with their father, Richard Aoci. The father responded to the Lake Mills Police Department and took custody of the children just before 10 p.m.
Lake Mills is a small town located between Madison and Milwaukee. Ilunga is currently being held at the Jefferson County Jail pending extradition to Illinois.
A motive for the alleged kidnapping is still unclear.
Reporter Grace Kinnicutt contributed to this story.
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