{"id":400912,"date":"2026-04-28T03:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/400912\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T03:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:21:08","slug":"desperate-search-for-australian-girl-feared-abducted-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/400912\/","title":{"rendered":"Desperate search for Australian girl feared abducted from home"},"content":{"rendered":"

An outback search will continue for a missing girl<\/a> and a recently released prisoner suspected of abducting the five-year-old.<\/p>\n

Sharon Granites disappeared from her home near Alice Springs early on Sunday morning, sparking a desperate search.<\/p>\n

Police on Monday said they suspected the little girl had been abducted as they launched a manhunt for 47-year-old Jefferson Lewis.<\/p>\n

He was staying at Sharon’s Old Timers Aboriginal town camp residence and went missing at the same time of her disappearance, police said.<\/p>\n

“We do believe Sharon has been abducted,” Acting Commander Mark Grieve said in Darwin on Monday.<\/p>\n

The little girl was last seen by her family when she was taken to bed about 11.30pm on Saturday (local time). <\/p>\n

She was reported missing about two hours later.<\/p>\n

Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price backed police’s calls for the outback community to come forward with any information they had to help find Sharon.<\/p>\n

“This is every parent’s worst nightmare,” she posted on Facebook, saying her thoughts were with the family.<\/p>\n

“Police have now issued an updated call for information, confirming extensive searches have been conducted but she has still not been located.<\/p>\n

“If you know anything – no matter how small – please come forward … let’s help bring her home.”<\/p>\n

Lewis was not in prison for child-related offending before being released but had a history of assault and domestic violence charges, Grieve said.<\/p>\n

“If he is involved, we certainly hope that no harm has come to Sharon,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, it’s a terrible situation to have such a young child go missing.<\/p>\n

“We want to find Sharon healthy and we want to get her back to her family.”<\/p>\n

Major crime squad detectives from Darwin have flown in to Alice Springs to investigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An outback search will continue for a missing girl and a recently released prisoner suspected of abducting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-400912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}