BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Telegraph Staff Writer
STARKE— Two teenagers who drove to Alabama are back with their families, a Union County Sheriff’s Office official said.
At press time, Chief Deputy Lyn Williams said his agency’s investigators planned to interview the two on Wednesday, April 12.
The sheriff’s office issued a missing child alert just after noon on Thursday, April 6, for 12-year-old Jade Gregory and Khloe Larson, 14, after the two went missing from the area of Northeast County Road 237.
Around four hours later, the agency announced that the two had been located in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, about halfway between Mobile, Alabama and Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Williams said the facts in the case would become clearer after his investigators interviewed the girls, but at this point, it appears both teens had been communicating with an unknown person in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area. When communicating with the individual, the teens used a borrowed iPad and aliases on a social media platform.
The Louisiana resident persuaded the pair to drive to the Baton Rouge area for a meetup, and Gregory commandeered her father’s Ford Taurus for the trip.
The pair made it as far as Bayou La Batre before seeing their images on a convenience store television screen.
“When they saw their pictures, they knew the gig was up,” said the chief deputy.
Williams said that after turning themselves into a local police department, the two told Alabama officials they did not want to return home. Their parents had to endure two court hearings before officials released the pair.
“I think it was part of being rebellious teenagers,” Williams said of the girls’ statements. “They made some unsustainable allegations, and Alabama officials wanted to protect themselves from liability before releasing the two.”
Williams added that while his agency is conducting its investigation, Federal investigators may conduct a second inquiry.
“Our biggest concern was to find them, find them safe, and to get them back to Union County safe,” he said.
