Two-year-old Rainn Peterson somehow found herself all alone, outside of her grandparents’ Ohio home on Friday night. What happened over the next 48 hours brought an entire community together.
Brandi Peterson, Rainn’s mother, says her daughter and two sons, aged three and four, were staying with their grandparents while she moved into a new apartment. According to her, the grandmother was busy in the kitchen so the grandfather was tasked with watching all three kids. Rainn walked away from the North Bloomfield, Ohio home.
A day later, K-9 units were combing the nearby area hoping for a sniff of her. They did catch her scent, briefly, but that proved fruitless.
“She’s 2 years old and goes to strangers,” Peterson told WFMJ-TV prior to Rainn’s discovery. “She goes to anybody. She is just an innocent little girl.”
Trumbull County Sheriff Tom Altiere said officers searched the home’s premises multiple times, and even ran polygraph tests on Rainn’s relatives and interviewed seven sex offenders, according to WKBN, but no signs of foul play were found.
Hundreds of search volunteers, a plane and helicopter were also involved. There were so many volunteers that some had to be turned away.
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But the effort couldn’t save little Rainn from a second night spent alone.
WATCH: Volunteers relieved missing Ohio toddler found after frantic 48 hour search. Nadine Grimley reports.
But thanks to Victor Sutton, a volunteer, Sunday’s search would be a much different story.
Sutton was nearly a mile away from the grandparents’ home when he spotted a ‘patch of purple’ in a field. Rainn was apparently wet and cold, wearing the same clothes she had on Friday and was covered with flies.
“I found baby Rainn and she’s alive,” he could be heard exclaiming during a 911 call.
“You’re okay sweetheart,” Sutton told Rainn during the call. “I swear to God you’re going to be okay.”
Rainn began to cry and when the emergency operator heard the tears, emotions ran high.
“I just got goose bumps,” Sutton said.
“Oh my God, me too!” the operator replied.
Representatives from the FBI joined Rainn on the ambulance trip to the hospital, trying to piece together how she wound up in a field, however, it remains unclear how she got there.
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