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CPD sergeant honored for role in finding missing 8-year-old girl

The Brief A CPD Sergeant was honored with the Joseph F. Cornelius Family Foundation Outstanding Police Officer of the Year Award. Sgt. Kevin Klein was given the award for finding Alessia Muhaj. Muhaj was kidnapped before being found unharmed, according to CPD. CLEARWATER, Fla. - When Clearwater Police Department Sergeant Kevin Klein got to work on Jan. 29 last year, he had one goal: to find eight-year-old Alessia Muhaj unharmed. "I knew that our night shift was actively searching for this gentleman where he had charges pending against him in Clearwater, and he was actively involved in a crime that also occurred in Largo," Klein said. "So, I actively got involved." Police said Renato Muhaj, Alessia's father, assaulted his parents early that morning at their apartment in Clearwater. Then, police said, he brutally killed Alessia's mother, Suela Saliaj, at her Largo apartment in front of their daughter before kidnapping her. The backstory "There was a serious concern that the father would cause harm to the young girl," Clearwater Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Walek said Wednesday. PREVIOUS: Clearwater 8-year-old girl found safe, father in custody for ex-girlfriend's death: Police According to Walek, Klein started canvassing the area where the suspect's cell phone pinged and found Muhaj's vehicle. He called for backup from Clearwater, Largo and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office while watching the car from far enough away that the suspect didn't know he was being watched. "When she was taken out of the vehicle by another member of another law enforcement agency, I was actually relieved to see that she was okay, and that was the most important thing to me," Klein said. Klein said it was personal for him because Alessia is just a little younger than his daughter. "It put me in a situation where I was like, only if that were to ever happen to anybody else, what I would think I would want the police to do, and definitely I fulfilled that for the rest of that family was getting her back safely to them," Klein said. What they're saying On Wednesday, the Rotary Club of Clearwater awarded Sergeant Klein the 48th Annual Joseph F. Cornelius Family Foundation Outstanding Police Officer of the Year Award for finding Alessia. "Sergeant Klein went to traditional police methods with modern technology to successfully apprehend this ruthless killer. Without his efforts, the outcome would have been far more tragic," Walek said. READ: Man lived with mother's decomposing body, lied about her whereabouts: SPPD "I was humbled by it. I wasn't expecting it. In my opinion, I was just doing my job that day: going out, making a difference and saving lives. That's what I signed up to do over 20 years ago," Klein said. "In my opinion, it was a team effort." Klein said law enforcement from several agencies worked together to bring the eight-year-old home to her family. "There was a happy ending to it, getting that girl back safe, especially under the traumatic situation that we were involved in, but it's definitely going to stand out and resonate through the rest of my career and probably the rest of my life that I was able to help that day," he said. Dig deeper Fire Medic Chris Collins of the Clearwater Fire and Rescue Department and Sergeant Nikole Kasparek of the Clearwater Police Department also received the 2025 Rotary Public Safety and Service Award at the luncheon. Collins volunteered his time to help the victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina last fall. He was there for four days with his wife, towing a U-Haul trailer full of donations to different depots to disperse the donations. With the help of a non-profit out of Texas, they also helped with missing persons reports. "The second day, I went and investigated a missing persons report where I found an elderly community up in one of the mountains on the north side of Asheville," Collins said. "There were about 20 different units with elderly folks in it that were cut off. They didn't have electricity. They didn't have heat." "Some of them didn't have food or water, so I gave them some of what I had and put them in contact with one of the churches down there that was a supply depot," Collins continued. CLICK HERE:>>>Follow FOX 13 on YouTube "My family and I, we go up to North Carolina. That's like our sacred area to kind of unwind, unplug, and, you know, plug into one another. So, we've been doing that for years," Collins said. "So, when we saw how bad they got hit, we looked at each other and said, 'You know, this is what we have to do.'" "Initially, we had a trip planned for our anniversary. It was just going to be my wife and I, and we switched that over to, 'all right, it's going to be an assist and rescue operation,'" Collins continued. Kasparek received the award for stepping up to the plate and volunteering her personal time to coach a girls' softball team that was suddenly without a coach. She still coaches today. The Source FOX 13's Kailey Tracy collected the information in this story. WATCH FOX 13 NEWS LIVE: STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app: Apple | Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter