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Search Underway After Toddler, Last Seen With Nanny, Fails To Arrive At School

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police are looking for a woman and a young girl who were last seen Tuesday morning.

Gabriella Russo, 3, was last seen leaving her Battery Park City home with her nanny Fatima Alexander, 55, at 9:15 a.m.

Russo is approximately 3 feet tall, weighs 44 pounds, has brown eyes, and black hair.

Alexander has been described as 5'4" and weighs 120 pounds. She resides at 1734 East 53rd St. in Brooklyn.

As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, the two were captured on surveillance video earlier in the day.

Sources told CBS2 that Alexander takes Russo to school on Market Street in Lower Manhattan every morning. Around noon, the Preschool of America Daycare called Russo's parents and told them that the girl never arrived.

Alexander has been the family's trusted, long time nanny.

"She didn't make it to school. They saw her leave here on camera, and that's it," Gabriella's aunt Rebecca Russo said, "She's been with us for 15 years."

Russo's relatives said Alexander's Brooklyn home was searched, but there was no sign of either of them.

"You see it on the news, and now it's happening to me and my family," Russo said.

The Russo family's River Terrace home has been swarming with investigators.

"There were cops in the lobby, and people. Poor mama, I assumed it was a noncustodial parent. I didn't know it was the nanny," Alex King said.

Alexander does not have a known criminal record or mental health history.

Anyone with information regarding their disappearance has been asked to contact the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) and entering TIP577.

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