Three-year-old Rebecca King disappeared into cornfields at her family's Pequea Township farm on Thursday night.
The little barefoot Amish girl in a purple dress spent the night missing before one of several search crews found her on Friday morning.
Rebecca was just inside some woods at the end of two cornfields, just over a quarter of a mile due north from her house at 1050 Byerland Church Road.
"She was sleeping when we found her," said Jason Topper, chief of the West Willow Fire Company.
Rebecca was immediately taken to her relieved parents, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron King, and ate breakfast with them, Topper said.
"She had some bug bites, but she was acting normally and was talkative to her family," he said. "Everything turned out fine."
It was a happy ending after a scary, stressful night for the family and the nearly 100 people who tirelessly searched for Rebecca.
The girl went missing around 8 p.m., Southern Regional police Chief John Fiorill said.
"She was playing with her older siblings near her house and orchard," he said. "She was running in and out of the corn and tobacco fields and didn't come back out."
Members of the family and some of their neighbors started looking for the girl immediately, but they couldn't find her.
The Kings did not call emergency personnel for help until 12:53 a.m., Fiorill said.
"The King family did everything feasibly possible to try to locate their missing daughter," he said. "When they couldn't, they called 911."
Southern Regional police Cpl. John Michener immediately helped in coordinating an extensive search, Fiorill said.
Once West Willow Fire Company arrived, it took over the scene along with Michener and the Middle Creek Search and Rescue team, Topper said.
About 35 Amish neighbors and volunteers from the West Willow, Willow Street, New Danville, Rawlinsville, Conestoga and Pequea fire companies plus two helicopters searched for Rebecca, Topper said. They were joined by the county's mobile Field Communications Unit, bloodhounds from Red Rose Search and Rescue and volunteers from Middle Creek Search and Rescue and the Pennsylvania Wilderness Search and Rescue team.
Additional search and rescue teams from Chambersburg and the Pocono Mountains also helped.
Searchers checked the main barn, a tobacco shed, two garages and a large chicken house on the farm. They also checked a well and a small cave.
No sign of Rebecca.
"Three-year-olds are usually found within six-tenths of a mile from where they were last seen," Topper said. "We started looking the closest places and worked our way out from there."
Three groups searched through cornfields, Topper said. A fourth crew searched along the Pequea Creek, and a fifth searched the woods north of the farm.
Searchers were concerned that the little girl may have headed west toward the Pequea Creek, Fiorill said.
The creek is only about 1,000 feet from where she was last seen and varies from a few inches to up to 5 feet deep, Topper said.
The worry showed on the face of Aaron King.
"You could tell he was distraught and kind of in a daze while the search was going on," Topper said.
The search went on for hours.
"The bloodhounds had a hard time getting a good scent," Topper said. "The family shares everything, and it was hard finding something only she had touched."
A state Medivac helicopter from York County searched with its night vision capabilities and a spotlight for a half hour until it had to stop because of fog at 3:30 a.m., Topper said.
A state police helicopter with infrared then searched for nearly a half hour, but it also came up empty.
"It picked up on some animals in the fields — one was a chicken — but the canopy of trees next to the fields were too thick for it to penetrate," he said.
Showers went through the area between 6:30 and 7 a.m., but they apparently didn't wake Rebecca.
The bell at a nearby Amish schoolhouse rang repeatedly, but it didn't rouse her.
Finally, at 8:11 a.m., two search groups that had met up after they searched two separate cornfields saw a little girl in a purple dress.
A searcher told Topper:
"We have a find! They found her! She's sleeping."
Rebecca was found just inside some woods on the Kings' property between Rawlinsville and Indian Hill roads, Topper said.
The fire chief said his department has not had a missing person search as extensive as this one since they found a handicapped adult alive about 15 or 18 years ago.
"It seems that you either get a quick find, or it lasts for a very long duration," he said.
"Her mother was so glad she was found," Topper said. "There was a sigh of relief from everyone when she was found, and found healthy."
