5-year-old girl taken by parent during supervised visit returned to father

SEATTLE — Sky Sanchez, a 5-year-old girl who was taken by a parent during a court-ordered supervised visit on Sunday, has been returned to her father.

Demetre Wilkins posted a photo on his Facebook page of him hugging his daughter.

“It sucks, she’s five and I believe that she deserves to be a kid,” said Wilkins. “She shared something with me that let me know, she’s fully aware of what’s going on.”

Wilkins said the girl’s mother, Kianna Sanchez, ran out of a child visitation facility with Sky.

Sky was returned to her father at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday after Kianna Sanchez’s brother turned Sky over to police.

The King County Jail roster shows Kianna Sanchez was booked at 1:33 a.m. for investigation of custodial interference.

The supervised meeting where Sky was taken took place in the 2800 block of East Madison Street at a child visitation facility called At Indaba.

Sky’s family says they were told that during the visit, Kianna Sanchez asked her visitation supervisor if she could go to the water fountain.

“(The supervisor) turned her back, and the mother ran out of the building with my child,” said Wilkins.

KIRO 7 reached out to At Indaba to get clarification on what happened.

A representative said they are working on releasing a statement with more on the situation and what they are doing to help.

Wilkins and his family are now calling for an investigation to uncover why there wasn’t more security at At Indaba.

There was a news conference regarding Sky’s return in Seattle at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday.

At that press event, Wilkins’ attorney, Erica Santos, argued it should not be so easy to take a child from a supervised visit at a facility like At Indaba.

“There should be security, there should be more things than you would find at a local mall or park,” said Santos.

At Indaba would not directly respond to the question of whether or not protocol was followed, but the facility sent a statement to KIRO 7′s Lauren Donovan Thursday.

“We at At Indaba are so happy Sky has been reunited with her family and is safe at home. We are committed to ensuring the safety of our families. At this time, we have no further comment as we participate in investigating how this happened and how to ensure nothing like this happens again.”

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