In January 2013, a five-year-old girl disappeared from her Philadelphia elementary school after being released to a woman claiming to be her mother.

When the child was found the next morning, she had survived an unimaginable ordeal—and remembered far more than her captor could have expected.

Among the details she gave investigators were pieces of a neighborhood, a house she couldn't see…and a talking bird.

This is the story of a remarkably brave little girl, the detectives who listened to her, and Marty, a loud blue-and-yellow macaw who became an unlikely part of a very serious investigation.

Sources

1. Associated Press / Fox News — February 2013 reporting on the arrest of Christina Regusters and the talking bird's role in the investigation. This is also where attorney Tom Kline said the bird became one of the investigation's focal points.
2. NBC10 Philadelphia — Sarah Glover and Vince Lattanzio, “Christina Regusters Found Guilty on All Counts in Child Kidnapping & Rape Trial,” September 2014.
3. The Philadelphia Inquirer — 2014 trial coverage detailing Detective Daniel O'Malley's investigation, the child's neighborhood drive, 6243 Walton Avenue, and Marty. This was our strongest source for Marty's actual investigative role.
4. The Philadelphia Inquirer — Matt Gelb, “Christina Regusters gets 40 years' prison in 'horror show',” October 5, 2015.
5. CBS News / Associated Press — “Kindergarten kidnapper says, ‘I'm not a monster,’ gets 40 years in prison,” October 6, 2015.
6. Pennsylvania Superior Court — Commonwealth v. Christina Regusters, No. 869 EDA 2016 (2017), appellate opinion.
7. 6ABC Action News — February 2013 coverage of Regusters's arrest and Animal Control's confiscation of the macaw as evidence.
8. The Philadelphia Inquirer — “Questions remain about abduction of girl, 5,” February 17, 2013; identifies Marty as a blue-and-yellow macaw and discusses the bird as evidence.
9. L.R. v. School District of Philadelphia — federal civil-rights litigation concerning Bryant Elementary's release of the child and the Third Circuit's qualified-immunity ruling.
10. Philadelphia School Reform Commission — May 17, 2018 official meeting record authorizing the $5 million settlement of the family's civil-rights litigation.

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