5-year-old girl found safe hours after she was reported missing in Missouri City

MISSOURI CITY, Texas (KTRK) -- A little girl is safe and sound after a frantic search for her on Tuesday afternoon.

Emerie Mitchell, age 5, was reported missing from a home on Lost Quail Drive in the Missouri City area in the early afternoon hours. Relatives said she told her grandmother she was leaving and walked out. When the grandmother checked on her, she was gone.

Houston police asked for the public's help to find the little girl. Family members and neighbors searched and distributed flyers.

A woman found Emerie and took her to a police substation roughly seven miles away from where the child had been last seen. Police say the woman saw the little girl alone and stopped her at the busy intersection of Quail Park and McHard.

"She said she grabbed her right before she stepped out. She stopped her right before she crossed the freeway," said HPD Missing Persons Det. Sean King. "I was just grateful and happy she was able to do that."

She was reunited with family members shortly before 6 p.m.

"I'm just glad we have her back. That's all that matters to us," Martisha Grandy, the girl's aunt, told reporters.

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