A viewer of the CNN program "The Hunt with John Walsh" helped authorities find a 3-year-old girl who had been reported kidnapped more than a year ago, the Associated Press reported.

The child, named Lilly, was discovered about 280 miles from the South Florida location where she had gone missing in May 2014 when her mother, Megan Everett, failed to return her to her father, Robert Baumann, as had been stipulated in the parents' custody agreement.

The Putnam (Florida) County Sheriff's Office on Monday arrested Everett, 23, after the tip came in as the incident was featured on the show hosted by victims' rights activist John Walsh. Baumann, 27, said investigators told him the clue came from a landlord who was renting out a Palatka property to Everett.

Lilly, meanwhile, was temporarily placed into protective custody as police notified Baumann, Sunrise police noted. The girl was being called "Mary" during the time she lived with Everett, they said, according to the (Broward County, Florida) Sun-Sentinel.

"It's so great, I'm so relieved," Baumann told the newspaper as he drove to Palatka to meet his daughter. "It just kind of stunned me; I felt like I was running around with my head chopped off."

The father later described the reunion with his daughter as "surreal," NBC Miami detailed.

"John Walsh put the show on last night, and I couldn't imagine that in less than 24 hours they would have found her after a year and a half of searching for her," he said. "It's going to be a long, tough road but, like I said, it's going to end up being OK. You know, she is going to be safe now, so that's all that matters to me."

Everett is being held in Putnam County and will be extradited to Broward County to face the charges, investigators told the Sun-Sentinel. She and Baumann had apparently disagreed on several issues, including whether Lilly should attend preschool and whether the girl should be vaccinated, accounts by family members and public records suggest.