Police locate missing 16-year-old girl and accuse her of orchestrating own kidnapping from Youngstown
Multiple media outlets and local police departments were alerted to a missing and possibly kidnapped teenager from the area on Tuesday morning.
But after investigating, the Youngstown Police Department said evidence revealed the 16-year-old girl orchestrated her disappearance, making it seem like her life was in danger to steal money from her parents.
What happened Tuesday morning
According to Youngstown Police Chief of Detectives Jason Simon, police officers responded Tuesday morning to a call in the 700-block of Sherwood Avenue to look for the missing girl and talk to family members.
During this first interview with her parents, officers discovered she ran away from their home Monday evening and hadn’t returned.
On Monday evening, the missing girl’s parents received several text messages from her stating that she’d been kidnapped and “had a gun to her head.”
In the texts and later phone calls, it’s said her captors demanded money via CashApp as ransom.
Believing she was in immediate danger, YPD launched a full investigation.
After five hours of searching, police and the local Child Abduction Response Team (CART) started to suspect the 16-year-old had orchestrated this scheme to extort money from her father.
Simon said police believe she lied about the kidnapping to exploit her parents. She was located by the YPD Detective Division safe and unharmed, not far from her home.
What charges were filed?
After being found, she was interviewed by detectives with YPD’s Special Victims Unit and booked into the Juvenile Justice Center.
She’s facing the following charges:
Inducing Panic (2917.31A1, F-4); Making False Alarms (2917.32A1, F-4); two counts of Telecommunications Harassment (2917.21A1 & A9, each F-4); Extortion (2905.11A2, F-3); two counts of Theft (2913.02A3 & A5, each F-5) and Possession of Criminal Tools (2923.24A, F-5).
Police have not released her name to the public at this time.
Chief Carl Davis, Simon and Lt. Mohammad Awad thanked the department, the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, BCI, the FBI-Youngstown office, the U.S. Marshals and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for help solving the case.
“All of these agencies exerted investigative excellence in bringing this case to a rapid conclusion and giving closure to a family who was led to believe their daughter would be murdered,” said Simon. “Furthermore, we want to emphasize that actions such as these – whether committed by juveniles or adults – are serious criminal matters and will be investigated and criminally prosecuted.”
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