Abducted girl found safe

A GIRL abducted by three aunts from her foster parents nearly seven years ago, when she was an infant, is back in California after she was found safe in Phoenix, authorities said.

The girl returned to Norwalk on Wednesday night and was placed in the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lieut Bill Evans said.

Detectives from the Phoenix Police Department’s missing persons unit, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI located the 7-year-old girl at a Phoenix house.

A woman was trying to hide the child in a bathroom shower under a pile of clothes and towels when investigators searched the home under a court order, authorities said. The girl appeared to be in good physical condition, Evans said. Her name was not released.

Police said three biological aunts — all juveniles at the time — abducted the girl when she was less than a year old, during a “noncustodial visitation” at a Norwalk restaurant.