A mother from Illinois is facing criminal charges after allegedly fabricating the abduction of her 4-year-old daughter, leading to an intense 9-hour search involving an Amber Alert and a police investigation. The woman, 37-year-old Princess Ilunga, initially reported that her car had been stolen with her child inside, but authorities later determined that the girl had never been missing in the first place.
The incident unfolded on the morning of January 26, when Ilunga called 911, claiming that she had left her car running in front of her home with her daughter in the backseat. She reported that an unknown suspect had taken off with the vehicle. Law enforcement immediately responded and, within 15 minutes, located the abandoned car a few blocks away. However, there was no sign of the child.
The urgency of the situation prompted authorities to issue an Amber Alert, and the girl’s photo was widely shared online. Officers set up a command post, canvassed the area with drones, and searched homes in the vicinity. The search lasted for several hours until the girl was discovered in an alley not far from her home, sometime before 3 p.m. that same day.
After further investigation, police concluded that the girl had never actually been missing. Instead, Ilunga had allegedly hidden her daughter and misled authorities about her whereabouts. Law enforcement officials accused Ilunga of intentionally deceiving officers from the very beginning. They revealed that when police initially arrived at her home, the missing child was in the room the entire time. Ilunga reportedly attempted to pass her off as another daughter and instructed her children to refer to the girl by her Swahili name. To make the deception more convincing, she also had them remove the child’s pink coat—the same one she had described in the abduction report.
Authorities disclosed that a police officer who spoke fluent Swahili was able to understand Ilunga’s conversation with her children, exposing the falsehoods in her account. Despite this, Ilunga continued with her deception. After a detective who had been stationed outside the home left the scene, she allegedly put the pink coat back on her daughter and led her to an alley, where two women later “discovered” the child while assisting in the search efforts.
Shortly after the incident, Ilunga left the area with her seven children. A warrant for her arrest was issued on January 30. Hours later, she was pulled over in Johnson County, Wisconsin—about 200 miles away from her home in Rock Island, Illinois. Law enforcement officers took her into custody while the children’s father arrived to pick them up. Ilunga remains in jail, awaiting extradition back to Illinois to face charges of filing a false report.
The motive behind Ilunga’s alleged actions remains unclear. However, law enforcement officials have speculated that she may have believed authorities would respond more urgently to her stolen vehicle report if they thought a child was inside. Regardless of her reasoning, the situation caused significant concern and wasted valuable law enforcement resources.
Authorities have emphasized the gravity of filing a false report, especially when it involves fabricating a child’s abduction. They highlighted the importance of truthfulness in emergency situations, as deceptive claims not only divert attention away from actual emergencies but also erode public trust in systems designed to protect children.
