The man believed to have killed a person and kidnapped a pregnant woman and her four children is in custody following a search on Friday morning.

The Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office said Chad Aanerud, 35, was taken into custody at 7:15 a.m. Friday following a traffic stop in Morrison County.

Inside his vehicle were a woman and her four children, who had been reported to have been kidnapped hours earlier. A statewide Amber Alert was issued, but it was canceled after all five were unharmed.

The kidnapping is connected to a fatal shooting in Oak Lawn Township, east of Brainerd, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff’s deputies said they responded to a shooting in the town on Loerch Road around 1:50 a.m. Friday, where they found 62-year-old Lyle Maske dead from a gunshot wound.

Aanerud was identified as a suspect in Maske’s murder and was also suspected of setting fire to a house on the property, authorities said.

The sheriff’s office later learned that Aanerud had kidnapped his 33-year-old girlfriend and her four children, ages 3 to 14.

According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Aanerud grabbed a rifle and fired into the house where the five people were staying, forcing them to leave with his vehicle.

Law enforcement officials say a 66-year-old man from Morrison County heard the Amber Alert and saw the vehicle in his neighborhood about 5 miles outside of Little Falls this morning.

Officers from the Morrison County Sheriff’s Office and Minnesota State Patrol stopped the vehicle containing the suspect and the children at the intersection of 183rd Street and 175th Street.

Paramedics checked the children and mother and the suspect was arrested without incident.

Morrison County Sheriff Shawn Larsen said they are still trying to figure out why the suspect was in that area and asked people in the area to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.

“I would like to express my gratitude for the collective efforts of everyone involved,” Larsen said. “Rapid intervention definitely made a difference in this situation.”

The investigation remains active and authorities will release more information as the investigation continues.

Someone taking a child must meet certain criteria to issue an Amber Alert. You can find more information about the criteria and sequence of events for Amber Alerts in Minnesota here. You can also read online HERE.