Telegraph Staff Writer
STARKE— The Union County Sheriff’s office said it has identified the person two teenagers communicated with prior to them driving toward Louisiana to meet the person.
On Thursday, April 6, the agency issued a missing child alert 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.
The 12-year-old had stolen her father’s Ford Taurus for the trip and drove nearly 400 miles on Interstate 10.
After arriving in Alabama, the pair saw themselves on a convenience store television screen and turned themselves into Alabama law enforcement.
Sheriff’s Captain Lyn Williams said investigators interviewed the pair on Wednesday, April 12, and identified the person the girls were communicating with before leaving for Louisiana.
“It was a real person,” Williams said of the girls’ contact, “a boy approximately their age. They had not met him personally, but he was a friend of a friend of a friend.”
Williams said the sheriff’s office has turned over all its casework to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for any further action.
He added that the state agency would conduct a forensic review of the device the girls used to communicate with the boy to uncover text messages and other communications.
