Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Police capture mother who allegedly posed as social worker to kidnap five-year-old son

Danielle Banzet was arrested on Thursday night and her missing son Brixton Sisk was found safe hours after his abduction from Kansas that afternoon

Rachel Sharp
Friday 20 May 2022 11:35 EDT
(NCMEC)

A mother has been arrested in Oklahoma after she allegedly posed as a social worker to kidnap her five-year-old son from his daycare in Kansas.

Danielle Banzet was taken into custody by Oklahoma Highway Patrol and her son Brixton Sisk was found safe on Thursday night, following a frantic hours-long search for the missing boy.

An Amber Alert had been issued to track down the five-year-old after police said that a woman had come to his daycare in Rose Hill, Kansas, posing as a social worker and abducted him.

Investigators later learned that the kidnapper was Brixton’s mother.

The woman, who lost custody of her son, allegedly switched vehicles to avoid detection as she went on the run with the boy and an unknown male, before being captured hours later.

Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) said that the incident unfolded at around 2.40pm on Thursday afternoon when Ms Banzet entered RoseHill Elementary School and posed as a social worker to gain access to Brixton.

Once she had contact with the boy, she allegedly took him from the school building and drove off in a black Suburban with a paper-30 day tag.

Ms Banzet had previously her parental rights taken away by the courts and police said she had made threats of violence prior to the abduction, which led them to fear the little boy could be in “imminent danger”.

Hours later at around 6.45pm, the mother, Brixton and a man switched vehicles into a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta, police said.

That second vehicle was found abandoned less than three hours later in a rural area of Cowley County.

Later that night, KBI confirmed that the “suspects” had been stopped and arrested along Interstate 35 close to Kay County.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in