MYSTERY OVER MIRACLE RESCUE

POLICE are investigating the possibility that three-year-old AJ Elfalak was kidnapped and held for three days before his abductors released him into scrubland on Monday.

The youngster was reunited with his ecstatic parents after being spotted by a police helicopter while drinking water from a puddle in a creek about 500m from the family’s house on their remote property at Putty, west of Sydney.

As her little boy was placed into her arms by an SES worker who found him, all his tearful mum could do was cry: “My AJ, my AJ, look here at mummy.”

His father, Anthony Elfalak, said the survival of his son, who has autism and is non-verbal, was a “miracle”.

The boy had minor injuries from a fall and ant bites, suffered dehydration and a nappy rash after he went missing about 11.30am on Friday, sparking a three-day search.

He was transferred to hospital, where he was expected to spend the night.

“He’s just clinging to mum. As soon as he heard his mum he opened his eyes, looked at her and fell asleep,” Mr Elfalak said.

Police are looking into claims that four hours of CCTV footage covering the property vanished around the time AJ went missing from the porch of the family’s home on the 256ha property in the Upper Hunter, about 150km northwest of Sydney.

The family has maintained they thought he was abducted because they said he would never wander off.

Superintendent Tracy Chapman said although AJ had been found, the case was not closed. Senior detectives said “there are of lot of things that don’t add up”.

Some police are sceptical that he could survive three nights in rugged bushland with temperatures as low as 2C.

They have questioned why hundreds of searchers and sniffer dog teams backed up by helicopters could not find the boy, who was discovered just a short walk from home.

The Elfalaks moved with their four boys to the property on Yengo Drive this year.