Teen upset about losing phone privileges falsely claims kidnapping

She had actually run away because her mother had taken away her phone, she admitted to a detective.


(File photo)
(File photo)
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When a 13-year-old girl banged on doors in the S-Section saying she'd been kidnapped, a resident quickly called 911, prompting multiple deputies to search the area for a suspect and check nearby homes for surveillance footage of his vehicle.

But deputies soon determined that the girl's story wasn't true: In fact, it turned out, she'd been upset that her mother took away her phone, so she ran away, then got scared and fabricated the kidnapping story, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office case report.

The incident was reported at about 8 p.m. Nov. 1 by a 31-year-old Squire Court man who said the girl had knocked on his door and told him that a man had pulled her into his car, but that she'd been able to get away.

A deputy who arrived at the house spoke to the girl, who said she'd been walking her dog at the intersection of Slogan Place and Slogan Court at about 7:50 p.m. when a man pulled up in a four-door black pickup, jumped out, grabbed her by her left arm and pulled her into the truck, then drove south on Seminole Woods Parkway to the traffic light at U.S. 1.

When they got to the light, she said, she jumped out and ran to Squash Blossom Trail and began knocking on doors there and on Squire Court until the man who ultimately called 911 answered the door. 

But she was hazy on other details. She said the truck had a blue touch-screen radio, but couldn't say anything else about the vehicle. Nor could she give deputies the race, age, build or any other description of the man she said had kidnapped her, other than to say that he was wearing a grey T-shirt with the word Nike written across the front. She couldn't say which direction the truck had gone after she got out.

While deputies searched the neighborhood, one deputy drove the girl to her home, then spoke to her mother — who "advised she thought [the girl] may have been lying because she had just taken [the girl's] phone away for not doing her chores," according to the case report.

A detective came to the home and spoke to the girl, who admitted that she'd run away because she was upset about the phone. She'd left her dog on Slogan Court, walked down Seminole Woods Parkway to Squash Blossom Trail, then “got scared,” she said.

A neighbor found and returned the dog.

 

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