Michigan Amber Alert suspects tied up 6 people before kidnapping 5-year-old boy

5-year-old boy found safe after search

Left: George Cunningham. Right: John Stygler.

WHITEFISH TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Two men who kidnapped a 5-year-old boy in Michigan's Upper Peninsula sparked a statewide Amber Alert overnight on Wednesday.

George Cunningham, 53, and Jon Scott Stygler, 68, were arrested early Thursday morning after police found them on the ice of Lake Superior with Cunningham's 5-year-old son.

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Chippewa County deputies were first alerted around 7:15 p.m., for a call of a domestic dispute involving a stabbing in Whitefish Township, WOOD reports.

Deputies discovered the suspects had bound and gagged a woman they found outside the home and loaded her into a vehicle parked in the driveway.

Armed with knives, chemical spray and blunt objects, the men then got into the home, sprayed a man and four children and tied them up and duct-taped their mouths, investigators said, according to WOOD.

As the men searched the house for the Cunningham’s son, one of the victims cut themselves loose from the zip ties and stabbed at least one of the suspects, WOOD reports.

Cunningham and Stygler still managed to take the boy. 

Michigan Department of Natural Resources officers and deputies on snowmobiles discovered the trio about 52 miles east of the Lake Superior shoreline, making their way towards Canada.

Michigan Department of Natural Resources officers and deputies on snowmobiles discovered the trio about 52 miles east of the Lake Superior shoreline, making their way towards Canada.

Cunningham is a registered sex offender with a 2015 conviction for gross sexual imposition with a victim under the age of 13 out of Ohio. The sheriff’s office says Cunningham cut his electronic tether before the crimes.