AMBER Alert canceled; kidnapped The Dalles Boy safe

An AMBER Alert was canceled about an hour after it was activated in Oregon Wednesday morning after the reported kidnapping of a 5-year old boy by a man in The Dalles; OSP says the boy is safe and the suspect is in custody.

OSP said it was notified around 8:30 a.m. that the child was “reported safe” and the suspect was in custody.

The abducted child was identified as Skylar Meldin Coulcer-Jarding, age 5. He was described as white male, 3’6″, 45 – 50 lbs, with sandy brown hair. He wears glasses, is cross-eyed and has a speech impediment.

The child was reported taken around 5:40 a.m. from a home in The Dalles when the suspect, identified as Brian Lester DePriest, 36, went into the child’s residence and assaulted someone with a hammer, troopers said.

State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings says DePriest knew the boy’s mother and had been named in a protection order.

Police say the child’s mother and father were attacked with a hammer before the abduction. They were taken to a hospital with injuries considered serious but not life-threatening.

DePriest was arrested without incident in Dufur, a town south of The Dalles.

DePriest,who is from The Dalles and knows the boy’s mother, took the boy and reportedly left in a stolen bluish-green four-door 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier displaying Oregon license 229 BUK. The vehicle was said to be in fair condition and has a dolphin sticker on the trunk area.

DePriest was described as a white male, 6’5″, 201 lbs, with brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt and blue jeans.

This was Oregon’s 19th AMBER Alert activation since the program began ten years ago. Twenty-one children have been successfully located related to those activations, troopers said.