A 12-year-old Florida girl stole her father’s car and picked up her 14-year-old friend to meet an online predator who was in Louisiana.
The two girls were reported missing on April 6 after they were last seen in their hometown of Lake Butler, Florida, as they were believed to traveling toward Louisiana.
Chief Deputy Capt. Lyn Williams said their department had information that the girls could have been traveling to meet someone they met online.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children issued alerts for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, with special attention to areas around Baton Rouge.
The girls eventually saw themselves on television in a missing children alert at a gas station in Alabama and turned themselves in to local authorities. The Union County Sheriff’s Office said the girls had been found safe in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, about 400 miles from their hometown.
Williams said some things raised suspicions about the online person the girls were going to meet and that the matter was turned over to the FBI.
