A girl has been rescued after showing a poster that read the phrase “help me” while she was kidnapped in a car in the state of California, in the United States.

The victim, a 13-year-old girl, was allegedly abducted on July 6 at a bus stop in the state of Texas, when she was forced into a vehicle at gunpoint, the Long Beach Police Department reported in a statement.

On July 9, Long Beach officers responded to a 911 emergency service call in which bystanders had seen the victim in a parked vehicle holding a piece of paper with the word “help me” written on it, prompting officers to the scene to find the victim “visibly emotional and distressed.”

The Police were able to locate and arrest the suspect, a 61-year-old man who was in a nearby laundromat washing the kidnapped woman's clothes, a moment that she took advantage of to prepare the poster.. The agents found in the car the firearm used for the kidnapping, a black BB gun “that looked like a semi-automatic pistol”, and a pair of handcuffs.

The alleged kidnapper was transported to the Long Beach City jail, where he was booked for kidnapping, lewd acts with a child and fugitive from justice with a bail of 100,000 dollars (about 90,000 euros) and was released into custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on July 11.