MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — A 14-year-old girl who went missing out of Mount Vernon was found safe in Michigan nearly a month after her initial disappearance, according to the Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD).
The girl was last seen on Jan. 6. Her friends told the teen's parents that she had been speaking with an older man on the social media website Omegle, and they believed he may be the reason that she left.
As we reported in mid-January, the missing teen's mother told KING 5 she her daughter had been lured by an adult with bad intentions.
She also said she believed her daughter had recently been video-chatting with a random man who she met online. She worried that this person was not allowing her to call home.
"A couple of kids did see her speaking to an adult male on a video on our computer," said the mother, whose name KING 5 has decided to no longer share publicly. Our publication has also decided to no longer name or show the teen either because of her young age or the nature of the suspect’s alleged crimes.
After receiving a tip on Jan. 30 about the man's identity they were able to learn that the teen used a rideshare service to leave her home. Because there are only so many rideshare services available in Mount Vernon, they were able to identify the specific ride they believed she had taken. They were able to identify the man, called "Keith," and learn that he had a home in South Haven, Michigan.
Detectives developed probable cause to arrest the suspect for second-degree kidnapping. They collaborated with the Van Buren County Sheriff's Department to narrow down the suspect's location.
Police said they got his address from historical data linked to his rideshare account, because the suspect paid for her initial rideshare from her home.
"We don't get a lot of rideshares here in Mount Vernon, so we were able to narrow down who it was," said Shackleton. "Subject name of Keith, with an address in Michigan."
Police have not yet confirmed how the two may have met, but the teen's mom suspects she had been using Omegle, a platform designed to match strangers for video chat sessions.
"It's like a roulette. It just matches you with random people," described the teen's mom.
Omegle was shut down in November after it settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit centered around child sexual exploitation. Its founder has admitted that some users have misused the platform to commit heinous crimes.
VBCSD was able to identify the suspect's home on a property on Blue Star Memorial Highway, where they found the 14-year-old girl.
The 30-year-old suspect was arrested for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, failure to register as a sex offender and contributing to the delinquency of a child. Court documents show charges include two counts of human trafficking, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, three counts of criminal sexual misconduct and one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes.
MVPD thanked the teen's family, friends and other supporters for helping to find her, with a special thanks to VBCSD in helping to find the teen and arrest the suspect.
Meantime, Shackleton now wants to remind all parents to monitor their kids' internet usage.
"Make sure you have those parental patrols locked down and those location services locked down,” said Shackleton.