(CNN) — A 6-day-old Wisconsin baby who vanished from a home in the middle of the night has been found safe at an Iowa gas station, authorities said Friday.
A woman who disappeared from the home at about the same time is considered a “person of interest,” according to investigators.
An officer found Kayden Powell Friday morning. The child was swaddled in blankets inside a tote bag at a West Branch, Iowa, gas station, according to Town of Beloit, Wisconsin, police Chief Steven Kopp.
“Despite frigid temperatures, Kayden was found alive, and appears to be dong very well,” Kopp said. “In the words of EMS officials, he is in excellent health.”
The baby was found outside the building, according to G.B. Jones, acting special agent in charge of the Milwaukee office of the FBI.
“We’re all very, very fortunate that this baby is alive,” Jones said.
While no charges have been filed in the case, one figure in the story was jailed in Iowa on different charges: the woman, Kristen Rose Smith, who disappeared from the Town of Beloit home at about the same time as the baby.
Smith was jailed in Iowa Thursday on an unrelated fraud warrant out of Texas after police investigating Kayden’s disappearance contacted her on her cell phone and asked her to report to a nearby police station, authorities said.
When police searched her car, they found baby clothes, but no sign of the infant, Kopp said Thursday.
Rock County Sheriff Robert Spoden said state and federal prosecutors will meet soon to decide if charges will be filed in the boy’s disappearance.
Kayden’s mother is 18-year-old Brianna Marshall.
Smith reportedly said at the home that she was Marshall’s half-sister and that she, Marshall and the baby’s father would be moving to Colorado, according to CNN affiliate WKOW.
Authorities searched feverishly along the travel route back to Colorado after discovering the baby was missing, Jones said.
“We did have troopers, deputy sheriffs and police officers out all night checking every conceivable place along that route,” Jones said.
