During an early October camping trip with her family in upstate New York last year, Trisha Sena experienced every parent's worst nightmare.
Sena's children were riding their bicycles along a loop around the lake on Oct. 3, 2023 – a Saturday – at Moreau Lake State Park when her 9-year-old daughter, Charlotte, disappeared.
"Long story short, the role is, you go in pairs. You're not allowed to go alone. They were riding bikes, and they wanted to come back," Sena told Fox News Digital. "And Charlotte said, 'I'm just going to go one more time.' She didn't tell anybody. Everybody pulled in, and she kept pedaling. And unfortunately, someone was there waiting on the other side of the loop."
A man, unknown to Charlotte, stopped her and asked her for help getting something in the back of his truck. She responded – as she was instructed to by her parents – that he was a grownup, and he could do it himself.
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"That is something that we talked about with our kids – that grownups don't ask kids for help. They ask other grownups," Sena said. "And he said, 'My hands are too big. I can't reach it in the back of my truck.' So she decided to help him. And at that point, he pushed her in the back of his truck and drove by our campsite with Charlotte in the back… and she was gone for 47 hours."
When Sena realized her daughter was missing, which did not take long, she immediately called police, instinctively knowing that something was horribly wrong.
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"In situations like this, every minute, every second counts when it comes to your reaction time," she said.
The following Monday, around 4:20 a.m., state police were watching Sena's home when they witnessed a suspicious man drive up to the house and drop something in the family's mailbox. It was a ransom note.
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Police immediately collected the note, which they ran for fingerprints, and took note of the vehicle details. A fingerprint on the note matched one in their system from a 1999 DWI arrest in Saratoga County.
Authorities were soon able to identify and arrest the suspect. Later that same Monday, tactical teams stormed his mother's double-wide trailer in Milton, just outside Saratoga Springs, where they located the suspect and Charlotte.
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"Immediately, the little girl was found in a cabinet, covered. She was rescued," Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a press conference at the time.
The year since Charlotte's kidnapping has been the "hardest year" of Sena's life, but her family is working hard to move forward and be positive, she said.
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"I could sit here and say it's been a terrible year, and it's been the hardest year of my life, which it has. But as a family, we've made a lot of progress moving forward. Charlotte has made a lot of progress moving forward," she said.
Sena and her sister, Jené Sena – Charlotte's aunt – have turned a terrifying moment that rattled their entire family into a source of hope and change for families going through similar situations involving missing and abused children. They now co-host a podcast called "Sisterhood of the Survivors," on which they "share their personal stories as they heal from this traumatic event in its aftermath, as well as the stories of others," according to a description of the show.
The Sena sisters have also advocated for commonsense updates to state and national Amber Alert laws, as well as a New York state bill called the Child Survivor Privacy Act, which aims to make the road to justice for child abuse survivors a shorter and easier one.
The bill requires the FBI "to use a multidisciplinary team with investigations of child abuse and related crimes" and "reauthorizes grants for children's advocacy centers (CACs)," which "use a multidisciplinary response to coordinate the investigation, treatment, and prosecution of child abuse cases," according to a summary of the legislation.
It also requires the "FBI to use a multidisciplinary team with any investigation of child sexual exploitation or abuse, the production of child sexual abuse material, or child trafficking" and mandates the agency "also use a trained child adolescent forensic interviewer in these investigations."
Trisha Sena noted that her daughter had to retell her story on three different occasions, forcing the 9-year-old to relive her trauma, "even though there were one million pieces of evidence," in order for prosecutors to get the statements they needed to bring the suspect in her case to justice.
"Basically, you have to prove that someone committed a crime against you, even though there is DNA evidence, maybe there was someone that saw you being taken, whatever the case may be," Trisha Sena said. "… I feel like, as a whole, we need to do a better job protecting these kids."
Retelling stories of abuse may deter some children from speaking up about their experience, she noted.
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Additionally, Trisha and Jené are advocating for stronger sentences for child abusers.
"We actually… had a meeting with some important people in the governor's office… and we said, ‘Can we do something about that?’ I mean, these people who commit crimes against children are getting out in six months, or they're getting off with time served.… And it's not protecting our children by allowing them back out on the streets," Jené said.
Trisha noted that her daughter will have to live with what happened when she was 9 "for the rest of her life," while child abusers like the man in her case are given opportunities to be released from prison after serving their sentences.
"It's just wrong," Trisha said.
Craig Nelson Ross was 47 years old at the time of his arrest. While he could have served 111 years for the crimes he was accused of, he was sentenced to serve 47 years as part of a plea deal.
