A 6-year-old who was missing for 2 years was found alive, sealed under a wooden staircase, police say

• Paislee Shultis went missing in 2019 at age 4. She was found in Saugerties, New York, on Monday.
• Police said they believe her parents kidnapped her after they lost custody of her.

A 6-year-old girl who went missing in upstate New York two years ago was found alive inside a sealed area under a wooden staircase on Monday, police told NBC News and CBS New York.

Police say Paislee Shultis was kidnapped by her biological parents, Kimberly Cooper and Kirk Shultis Jr., in 2019 after they lost custody of her and her sister, NBC News reported. It is unclear why they lost custody.

Officers took her from her grandfather's house in Saugerties, New York, on Tuesday after receiving a tip on her whereabouts, Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra told CBS New York. The house was about 150 miles from where she used to live in Cayuga Heights.

While searching the house, a police officer noticed something strange about the wooden stairs leading to the basement, Sinagra told CBS New York.

The officer "saw what he believed was a blanket and based on that, they started ripping the steps off the stairs. And at one point they had taken several of the steps off, they could see small feet," Sinagra told CBS New York.

Officers found the girl hiding with her biological mother, Sinagra said.

"It was pretty dingy. It was cold. There was blankets that were laying on the ground, on the concrete floor. They were completely soaked, extremely heavy," he told CBS New York.

"Now it is our belief that each and every time in the past two years that we went to the residence with new leads, that this is where the child and mother would hide," he added.

Shultis was found in good health and was returned to her legal guardian, Sinagra told CBS New York. She was also reunited with her older sister, who had been living with the legal guardian. The identity of the legal guardian was not made public.

The Saugerties Police Department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The girl's father and grandfather were charged with one count each of first-degree felony custodial interference and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, NBC News reported.

Her mother, Cooper, was charged with second-degree custodial interference and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, NBC News reported.