Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Autistic Teen Girl Disappears, PARENTS FEAR SEX TRAFFICKING

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Kaylee Jones, 16, has been missing from her Georgia home for over two weeks. On the night of June 14th, Daniel and Brenda Jones told their daughter good night, but in the morning she was gone.  Detectives believe Jones may have met up with someone she has spoken to online.  Jones' mother says the parents had taken the girl's phone, but she still had access to a laptop and in looking at her online activity they found Kaylee Jones had been using an app to talk to at least four men online. Police say Jones does not currently have a cell phone or any other electronic device on her.  The missing teen is described as being 5-feet-8-inches tall, weighing about 135 pounds. She has brown eyes and brown hair. TIPLINE: Kim Biggs, Carroll County Sheriff's Office 770-830-5916 or [e-mail]/groups/553187096189348 Joining Nancy Grace Today: Daniel Jones - Victim's Father, Facebook: "Where is Kaylee Jones"   Brenda Jones - Victim's Mother, Facebook: "Where is Kaylee Jones" Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, author “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego, Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD  Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy (Miami Beach, FL), Panthermitigation.com, Twitter: @TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology"   Lisa M. Dadio - Former Police Lieutenant, New Haven Police Department, Senior Lecturer, Director of the "Center for Advanced Policing" at the University of New Haven's Forensic Science Department   Titania Jordan  - Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World", www.Bark.us, Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories dot Com, Twitter: @swimmie2009  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Do you have children? Because I do. And at night, when I check on them and they go to sleep I feel safe and secure I know that the windows are locked the doors are locked the alarm is on everything I can do to keep them safe in this world can you imagine going into your child's room and seeing your child gone? That is a suffering that a couple is enduring right now, and we need your help now more than This young girl is autistic. She is bipolar. She has probably no idea who or what she is with, and she is in danger. Where is Kelly? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111.

First of all, take a listen to this. Without her phone on her, it's making it more difficult to track her down. You never think it's going to happen to you. I tried to run this and reinforce this and reinforce this in her mind she she cannot trust whoever she sees. It's a message for parents out there. Keep an eye on your children's use of social media so that they don't become the next target. They prey upon these these kids and it's sickening. The Carroll County Sheriff's Office says they are reviewing Jones' social media records and followed up with the last person she had contact with. They are still actively searching for Jones and hasn't ruled out possibilities

on what may have happened leading up to her disappearance. As you just heard, the family is so desperate for your help. If you know anything, contact the Carroll County Sheriff's Office as soon as possible. You were just hearing from our friends at CBS, but now take a listen to Crystal Bowie at CBS 46. My daughter is Kaylee Jones. She's 16 years old. Take a good look at Kaylee Jones. So I was here at work and my wife called me about 7.15 and she said Kaylee was gone. Her parents haven't seen her for about a week.

And it's hard for Daniel and Brenda Jones to go to sleep at night wondering where their daughter might be. And it's just gut-wrenching knowing she's out there somewhere and we don't know where she's at. All the worst thoughts come to our minds. She's our daughter and we desperately want her back. She is a big, huge part of us. Kaylee is autistic, and because of that, her parents are afraid their daughter was more vulnerable to any online predators. My wife found that she was talking to four or five different guys via Snapchat. They took her phone away on Monday, and by Wednesday morning, Jones was gone.

Can you even imagine, number one, your teen girl, a young teen girl, talking to people she doesn't know on Snapchat? I mean, every time I say, hey, who are you talking to? Who are you on line with? And my son will say, well, so-and-so. Do you go to school with him? No. How do you know this isn't some 65 year old guy out in Taiwan trying to get your picture? Okay. How do you know that? Because you don't know that. You don't know who you're

talking to. And this teen girl is not only young in years, but she is autistic and bipolar. She has no idea who she may have gotten into the car with or what they plan to do with her. Joining me right now, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, but special guests I want to go to first, Daniel and Brenda Jones. These are Kelly's parents. I want to go first to you, Brenda. This is Kelly's mom. Brenda, tell me when you first realized Kelly was gone. And listen, I hope you're not beating yourself up about taking your phone away. I just took Lucy's phone away last night. And it was a war between the gods, let me tell you, because she hadn't finished her scouting.

She has a scout merit badge thing due. And I told her we talked about it for three days. And the deadline was 11 o'clock last night, and she didn't finish. So I took her phone. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, you would have thought that the fabric of the earth had been torn apart. So I hope you're not blaming yourself for taking her phone away, number one. But tell me when you realized Kelly was missing. I'm only blaming myself that since I took her phone, she's gone.

But I got up and I started calling her from the downstairs. Kaylee, Kaylee, it's time to get up. You got to go to work at 8. And what time was that? 7. 7 a.m. Is that their normal wake-up time? It all depends on the days that she works.

She usually works at 8 o'clock. Where does she work? Dollar General. Okay. The reason I'm asking, that throws a whole other wrinkle into this. Who may have seen or met her at Dollar General, one of my all-time favorite stores, by the way. The Dollar General there in Carrollton, correct? Yes, right down the street. All right. So she would be normally there at 8 a.m. You woke her up at 7. You're calling for her. Then what happened? Well, I called her from downstairs.

No reply. I thought she was just still asleep. I'm like, Kaylee, get up, get up. No reply. So I go upstairs, open her door, and she's not there. So of course I walked downstairs, call nine one frantic, um, on the nine one, one call. Um, can I back you up? Can I back you up just a second, Ms. Jones? Sure. So you walk to her bedroom, look in there and she's not there. What went through your mind? Like I was going to throw up. Panic. Extreme panic. Where is she?

I looked in her bathroom. I'm like, she's not there. I'm calling her. She's not there. I go downstairs. I call her. She's not there. And I realize she's not there.

She's gone. You're making my throat just hurt. I feel like. She's not there. And I realize she's not there. She's gone. You're making my throat just hurt. I feel like I swallowed a rock just thinking about what you're saying. When I can't find one of the twins, I immediately think, okay, don't get crazy. They're probably so and so wherever, because you don't want to think they're really gone. They're missing. So you see she's not in the bedroom. She's not in the bathroom. You go downstairs. Is anybody else in the home? Your husband's already gone to work. Nobody else is home. Okay. You go downstairs to the phone and then what? I think I walked outside to call the police right away. Call-1-1 okay then what and then I called then I hung up and called Danny

and saying that she's not here Daniel Jones joining me this is Kelly's dad Daniel how did that moment play out with you it was 7 15 when your wife called correct yeah roundabouts from what I can remember I don't really remember and uh when she said she, she called and it was kind of weird. She was calling me at seven 15, but she does every now and then. And I answered the phone. Hello. And she's like, she just says, Katie's gone. Katie's gone. Yeah. Katie's gone. I can't find her. I've already called 911. And my heart sank, and I just, I was at work, and I just got in my truck, and I drove home. I hung up with her. I called my boss, and I told him, because I start, I get there early, but most times,

or most times, the guys don't get there till eight o'clock. So we start like eight. So I called my boss at 715. I told him, I said, I'm going home. I don't know where my daughter's at. She's gone. She disappeared. You know, I want to go to Dr. Sherry Schwartz, joining me, a forensic psychologist specializing in where law and psychology intersect in criminal behavior.

Dr. Sherry, who has devoted her life to victim advocacy, that feeling, I don't understand what it is. I mean, I'm just a JD. When you feel that what's happening isn't real and you see it, you know it, you hear it, but it doesn't feel real. What is that? What mental issue is going on at a time like this? Well, it's you trying to bring your physical state and your psychological state into balance. Because there tends to be a physical reaction or the phenomenal sense of a physical reaction. Some people describe it as

it feels like things are happening in slow motion, right? Because the adrenaline is pumping and you just are processing what is happening here. And your brain is screaming something is not right. You know, that's the first time I thought about it in slow motion because I remember Dr. Sherry when my fiance was murdered. And I called my job at the library at Mercer University where I worked and said I was going to be late after an exam. And they told me to call Keith's family. And I knew immediately they lived out of town. I knew then something was wrong. And I remember trying to dial the numbers. It was a dial pay phone, and everything was going in slow motion. It's the first time I've thought of that.

Completely surreal. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Also joining you right now, Titania Jordan, Chief Parent Officer at BARC, which I love. She's the author of Parenting in a Tech World. Titania, thank you for being with us. I want you to listen carefully to what Brenda and Daniel are about to tell us. But wait, take a listen now

to our friend Christopher King at Fox 5. Now they're terrified of what may have happened to her. We think she's a victim of sex trafficking. Is she in danger? Yes.

Yes. This is the message to the person or people Kaylee may be with. Please bring her back. Bring her home. Don't hurt her. Bring her home. She's got a lot of life ahead of her still.

And just let her go. Bring her home. Let her go so we can try to get her the help she needs and she can hopefully live out the rest of her life again kaylee jones is 16 she stands about 5 8 she weighs about 135 pounds call the carroll county sheriff's office or 9-1-1 if you have any information on her whereabouts. And also, this young girl is autistic. She could get in the car with anybody and not realize the danger that she is in. To the parents, Brenda and Daniel, why do you say you're afraid she's been sex trafficked? First to you, Daniel. Well, I mean, we don't know for sure, but number one, she's been sex trafficked first to you Daniel well I mean we don't know for sure but there's

you know number one she's just disappeared but um some of the things that we found on the phone you just don't know exactly who is out there sometimes and they could be posing as this person or that person and you and there's's somebody different. And, you know, the hardest part is, is she is a little naive about things and she is more trusting of people for no reason, but we don't understand that. I don't know. I mean,

there's different websites and stuff. She was on chat rooms and it just, it just kind of leads and it just makes your mind go that this is a possibility that somebody's letter. Maybe not sex traffic, but maybe. Nothing good. Yeah. Nothing good.

Guys, I want you to listen to our cut 11. This is Brenda describing a prior incident. Remember, this teen girl is not like every other teen girl. This teen girl is autistic. When you look at her, you don't know that. She has no idea what she's doing right now. Listen. This is the second time she ran away in February because we took her phone. The first time. But she was gone for like four hours and the police brought her back she got in a car with an older lady because she was

lost she just took off out of the house we thought she was hiding in the backyard and then we realized she's not hiding in the backyard because we have lots of acres back there and next thing next thing we know, the police brought her back. And it was no more than four hours. So there's been one other incident where this young girl gets her phone taken away. And her only response that she can think of is not to argue about it, not to come up with a persuasive argument about why should she get her phone back like my twins do.

But in her mind, remember, she is autistic. This young autistic girl walks away from the house in anger and frustration over nothing and gets into a car with a complete stranger. And thank God in heaven, that time it was a little old lady. And she was back home in four hours. But this time she's not back home. Who did she get in the car with? One of these guys she's talking to online?

Straight out to our friend joining us, who's chief parent officer at BARC, Titania Jordan. Titania, the danger is horrific. For instance, you heard her dad say she was talking to some guys online on Snapchat. She has no idea who these guys are. It's absolutely devastating. My heart goes out to you all and my prayers as well. As a mom of a 13-year-old, I'm feeling this deeply right now. You know, according to NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploiting Children, online enticement of children reports have increased 97.5 percent over the past year okay hold on you said you gotta slow down for the rest of us to tanya said online enticement luring luring i am a nervous

wreck when my children are online i know i try to do everything i can to make it safe for them, but it's really not safe. Did you say it skyrocketed? 90 what? 97 percent? 97.5 percent. You know, at Bark, we've escalated over a thousand online predators to law enforcement over the years. And good kids make bad choices. And parents have no idea until it's too late.

Now explain Snapchat to everybody that doesn't know about it. I've had a crash course in Snapchat. You get snapped. Explain what it is to Tanya. Well, first thing is that parents, if your children have Snapchat on their phones and you do not, get it immediately. Navigate the app. Learn how to use it. Don't send them into a landscape that you have not spent time in. You can send disappearing photos. They have a private messaging area that you would not even find if you opened their app and looked in it. There's also the Snap Maps feature that can share your child's real-time location with anyone they're connected to unless they are in ghost mode. It is terrifying. It is a very, very powerful communication tool.

It is very addictive. Children can buy drugs and other nefarious things on that app, again, without your knowledge. You know, the other day to Tanya, my son went, Mom, look, Andrew's in Switzerland. I'm like, who is Andrew? And why would someone you know be in Switzerland? He was on SNAP. And you could say it was right when school got out.

And I didn't know it, but this child, one of his parents, is from Switzerland. So they went there when school got out. You could see this one's down at Panama City Beach. That one is in Alabama. This one is in New York. And it's a little icon of each person. And if you hit it, you can actually see the area. Like one of the children were out on a boat somewhere with their parents at some lake in Georgia. And you could see, if you pushed it, the lake. You're right. And it goes all over the world. Hence the Andrew is in Switzerland comment. And I had no idea you could track a child anywhere in the world on this Snapchat feature. Back to the parents joining me. We are on the hunt for a teen girl, Kelly Jones, who is autistic and bipolar.

Daniel and Brenda Jones, our parents, are with us. To you, Brenda, who are these people? Do you have any idea who these four guys are that are targeting your girl on Snapchat? We didn't. The police have investigated a few of them. But the problem is, too, she not only was on Snapchat. When we took her phone, we were pretty sure that she was able to get her lock computer, her Google computer, and get on chat rooms.

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. What kind of chat rooms? So, Amigle. What? It's called Am kind of chat rooms so amigle what it's called amigle yes amigle chat room is it's o-m-i-g-l-e o-m-g-e-l-e i think right right right right okay so um we think when the day that she was home tuesday she she was able to get on a chat room we didn't know about until a friend told us. And that is even worse than Snapchat. Okay. Titania, school me.

I don't know about Omegle. I'm sure I'm saying it incorrectly. And everybody's going to have a field day with that. But what is it, Titania? Yeah. Omegle is a chat app that children can use to communicate with strangers. That is literally their tagline. Talk to strangers. They purport that the internet is full of cool people and Omegle lets you meet them. Not okay for kids. I repeat, not okay for kids. Wendy Patch is with me, California prosecutor, author of Red

Flags. And she is a host of Today with Dr. Wendy KCBQ. And you can find her at WendyPatrickPhD.com. So she knows what she's talking about. Jump in, Wendy. One of the things we worry about when we take our young teenagers phones away is they simply go to work and borrow a phone. And to that extent, they're able to access all the same kinds of chat rooms that they would if they had their own phone. So with somebody like Kaylee, I would just worry that someone at Dollar General, obviously everybody has phones there. Somebody might simply have lent their phone to have her continue to do this and talk to whomever. I would also worry that whoever she's with came into Dollar General and met up with her there. And so maybe the co-workers would at least have some knowledge of who was stopping by to say

hello. So it's almost a mixed blessing that phones can track some of our teens if, of course, we have a little bit of a lead to go on but the thing is uh to you daniel jones she doesn't have her phone does she no ma'am and she doesn't really talk to strangers face to face but i guess the people online are not strangers so she's not afraid to talk to them that is absolutely. She doesn't think that they are a stranger. That's absolutely correct. As a matter of fact, one of our friends, Alicia Kozak, has gone through this herself. Take a listen to our cut 14, our friends at WGME. When she was only 13, she was groomed, lured, and abducted by an internet predator,

Scott Tyree. Who kidnapped me and held me captive in his basement dungeon. And he was going to kill me. Her disappearance setting off a massive four-day nationwide search, while Tyree kept Alicia chained to the floor at his home in Virginia. He had been live streaming what he was doing to me online. And I turned on the computer, and there I was on the the screen with my hands bound above my head, crying, bleeding, begging, bruised. In between the beatings and the raping, he will hang you by your arms.

In 2008, she testified in Congress in support of legislation intended to prevent cyber crimes against children and the increasing amount of photos and videos of child abuse. Support the children. Save us from pedophiles, the pornographers, the monsters. The bill passed in the House and the Senate. Long story short, as you were hearing Kelly's dad saying she won't talk to a stranger in real life, but online, like Alicia Kovac that we were just hearing, you think you know the perp. They may pretend to be a 16-year-old boy. And based on seeing you, if you have on a t-shirt that says Carrollton County High School, they go, hey, I have a friend at Carrollton County High School. I play soccer for so-and-so, and I like Rita's frozen custard, and do you like McDonald's, and blah, blah, blah.

Next thing you know, she thinks she knows the person. It's some 65-year-old guy calling from God knows where, trying to lure this girl. And the next thing you know, he's right there at the back door luring her out. There are so many examples. You know, to you, Alexis Tereschuk, joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Alexis, thank you for being with us. What can you tell me about the search for this young autistic girl right now? So the Sheriff's Department has said that they have had multiple leads.

They've had many, many tips that people have called in in the community, and they have tracked all of them down, every single one of them. But they have not had anything that has turned up to be something that would have had contact with Kaylee. So they are asking the public, please let us know. And that's what they've done. They've also they've searched all of her electronic devices and, you know, to go through the cloud, maybe not the actual device and trying to get in contact with everybody that she has been in contact with online. But nothing has come to fruition yet.

Well, as a matter of fact, isn't it true, Brenda Jones? You know, I'm a huge police supporter, former prosecutor. But isn't it true you and I have a concern by the way this case was handled, treating her as a, quote, runaway, despite the fact that she is autistic and your fear that she may have even been taken out of the country being sex trafficked i mean does it matter how she got out the window really she's a teen girl autistic who cares how she got out i just want to bring her home brenda yes we just want to bring her home and we don't want them thinking that she's a runaway because we really don't think we do think that she was groomed um we also had a psychic that told us the same thing that that she's in danger okay lisa daddio former police lieutenant new haven police department senior lecturer and director for the center for advanced. Lisa, thank you for being with us. You know,

that is when a family is truly desperate when they are seeking out psychics to try to find their child. Can you imagine what this family is going through? And I think what the mother, Brenda, just said is very important. There's a difference. And not that it even matters in the big scheme. This girl is missing. She could be being killed or raped or taking a hundred miles away a day, further and further and further away from mom and dad. There's a difference in someone that has been run away of their own volition. They understand what they're doing. And a child that has been lured away. There is a difference in my mind, Lisa Daddio. And what should the police be doing right now? For instance, have they looked at ring cameras on people's doorbells? Have they looked at home security surveillance in the neighborhood? Have they looked at red light surveillance in the area to see what vehicle

she may be in? I mean, there's so much to be done right now. There is. And one of the things that we don't know, Nancy, is we don't know exactly what they did do. You know, we're living in an age of technology as what we're talking about right now, even in regards to the apps and the messaging and the chatting, well, we have the same opportunity utilizing cameras that people have naturally, whether it's stores, it's traffic cams, Ring is infamous, but again, depending on the area where we know she last was, her home, you know, have they gone to all those houses and asked to see if there's any cameras on their property? Asking people, you know, your postal workers, your drivers,

if anybody, you know, your package drivers, your FedEx, your UPS, had they seen her? We have to change law enforcement. We have to change thinking of runaway, which I despise that term, to somebody who's missing. I agree, Lisa Daddy. It somehow puts the blame on the child. And this is not just a teen girl. This is an autistic teen girl who has been through a lot in her life and has been taken in by loving parents. As a matter of fact, take a listen to our cut seven. She was three and a half, almost four. But my wife, she's a development therapist. And actually, she was a client to my wife for the time she was 18 months old.

Then, you know brenda got him like i said she did it there in the foster home itself and for about eight months almost earning she had not even three when she found out that that brenda found out that they were going to terminate right because the parents couldn't get their act together forever. God dropped a little girl in our lap and we honestly didn't know she had a brother. And when we found out, we said, well, we're just going to take both of them. Two parents that have sacrificed so much, they take in a three-year-old child whose parents crapped out on her with her disabilities. They find out she has a brother.

They take him too. And they raise both of these children. And now this has befallen them. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Daniel Jones. This is Kelly's dad. And you can find them on Facebook. Where is Kaylee Jones? Daniel, why did you guys take her phone away? Well, I mean, that's the whole thing is you try to

you try to give your I mean, even with Kaylee, I mean, she's 16. But you know, we we monitor and we try to monitor and put, you know, controls on. Anyway, we took the phone away. Brenda was talking to her. She was here in the afternoon on Monday. And Katie was in the dining room at the table doing her. She was trying to get do the for the Georgia, the the jacobs law to get her track her actual driver's license because we went and we moved from florida she had her permit well then she went and took her

to the dmv here in georgia well then even though it's already been a year by florida's law you know they have to have a ever permit anyway she had to do this Jacobs law thing so it's a 30-hour course so she's been she since the day she got back from there knew she had to do this she was working very diligently to do that and anyway but she was actually a little funny or whatever and Brenda was talking to her about something asked her about something and about our phone or something. And she kind of acted a little funnier.

So she said, well, what are you doing? Who are you texting or whatever? So she took the phone and started looking through it and then finds all this different stuff that parents don't want to see. I hear you. I hear you. And I understand. I hear you. I hear you, and I understand. I'm taking it. You honestly do not know how to control yourself

because it's so easy to do things on these telephones. Let me ask you then, Brenda Jones, earlier you were hearing Daniel describe the adoption of Kaylee and her brother, knowing full well about Kelly's disabilities as they were talking to our friends at Sleuth Mom. So I imagine that you handle her in a special way because she's autistic. But Brenda Jones, when you go online or you go on her phone and you see very disturbing content or people she's speaking with what are they talking

to her like she's a grown woman is it somebody talking to her about sex what is it it was a little worse showing different parts somebody is uh sexting her photos and vice versa okay you know what to tanya jordan joining me, Chief Parent Officer, Officer Bart Control. Yeah, I don't want to see that on my my daughter's phone or my son's phone. I don't want to see that. But if it's there, I want to know it's there. Because at that age, no one should be sexting a little girl naked photos and they should not be luring her to do the same thing. I mean, this teen girl, for Pete's sake, she's autistic.

She doesn't understand that somebody is taking advantage of her. But could you please tell the judges it ain't the first time and it won't be the last time. You know, it is so unfortunate. Every day at BARC, we are sending thousands of alerts around all kinds of issues, including sexting, sextortion, online predation. They are not alone. It's happening to children all across the country. And it's heartbreaking. We've got to continue to raise awareness and do something and protect this generation. You know, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, what kind, unless it's another boy this age, what kind of an adult, what predator would take advantage of a teen girl who is autistic, has no idea, and he had to know from her return texts that she's not like every other teen girl. Well, and that's exactly why a predator is looking for people with vulnerabilities that they can easily take advantage of who isn't going to resist because it makes things a

whole lot easier for them. The predator doesn't care about the victim. The victim is not human to them. It's all about their own gratification. Alexis Tereschuk, do we have any idea whether the cops have been pulling the ring and the red light video? Do we have any idea about home security video in the area? Anything at all? They have not shared any video at all that they would have of her, which would probably

be the first thing they would do because video is so powerful when you see somebody. They haven't shown anything like that, no. What do you know about it, Daniel? And Brenda, let me start with you, Daniel Jones. Have the police shared anything about what they're doing to try to find her? Well, that's the problem is where we live is kind of a rural area, you know, our little neighborhood, they found, I think, I think two ring cameras in our little area. I mean, we actually were talking several months ago about doing it as well, but we haven't put one up yet. Um, and now I'm kicking myself for not doing it and not having security cameras all around the house, inside, outside, you know, but they they've they've searched that stuff they did they did some other search um they tried to you know uh one of the guys that was through snapchat i found the tag

and they ran that and they talked to one of the other guys that she was talking back and forth with more and they you know they made contact with him they they got all the tag numbers for him and his family you know immediate family and a little bit of exist or you know little distant family or whatever aunts and uncles or whatever and they ran through them through all the spec or whatever it's called or fleck or something and they didn't find any of those vehicles in our area so they you, ruled that one guy out. So they were doing that stuff. And they searched the homes in your neighborhood.

That I don't know. I mean, I know they went around, but I mean, this is more like my daughter, because we called and, you know, my daughter's missing. She ran away. That was a thing, you know, for me, you know, there's so many things, but runaway doesn't label anything. It's just like my daughter ran away. I don't know where she's at.

This is reminding me of the case of Danielle Van Dam, a beautiful little girl that goes missing in the night from her home in California. Massive search. It was actually a guy, Westerfield, that lived not too far away from her that had taken her in the night. So you can't rule out, even though it seems like it's somebody she's met online, you can't rule out that it's someone closer at hand. Or could you tell me about this, Brenda Jones, when the one other time that she got angry when you took her phone for good reason, she got in the car with a little old lady and the police found her.

I mean, how do we know she didn't just get in the car with somebody that she wasn't talking to online? I mean, that could be true, too. It could be. What is your gut feeling, Brenda? My gut feeling is she was taken through probably those chat rooms. She was mad. And so she's like, I'm going to go with whoever, whoever, whatever. So she just got in the car with whoever. That's my feeling. And my feeling that she's in danger? The danger is real. I have got a stack of paper so thick on my desk of similar transactions of young girls, young people, usually girls,

being lured online. They have no idea who they're talking to. Turns out to be somebody completely different. You heard our friend earlier, Alicia Kozikiewicz. Take a listen to Our Cut 16. Our friends at WSOC. New warrants reveal the level of abuse a charlatan endured while being held captive in Georgia for more than a year. The documents say that Michael Weisselowski confined Haley Burns in an upstairs bedroom of his Duluth home, telling her that she would be arrested if she left. Weisselowski reportedly controlled every aspect of his 17-year-old captive's life, keeping a food journal detailing how many calories she'd eaten each day,

and withholding food from Haley if he thought she'd eaten too many calories the day before. Doctors at the Atlanta hospital who examined Haley after she was rescued determined she was suffering from malnutrition, according to warrants. Her parents told Channel 9 she lost 15 to 20 pounds. Haley Burns disappeared from her Ballantine home in May of 2016. This past weekend, the FBI responded to a tip and tracked her to a home in Georgia. Michael Weisselofsky is in jail under no bond on a number of state charges. And our cut 18, our friends at WISN. Tommy Lee Jenkins' first conviction on child sex charges was in 2011.

Now he's charged in a new investigation. Documents show Jenkins used Facebook to communicate with someone he thought was 14. It was actually an undercover deputy who asked, do you care? I'm 14 and drink. Jenkins reply, according to the records. No. Prosecutors claim Jenkins initiated the topic of sex and wanted the undercover to send a picture with no shirt, no pants. Asking when you get here, would you like to have sex with me?

The undercover responded, yes. no shirt, no pants, asking, when you get here, would you like to have sex with me? The undercover responded, yes. And the whole time, this pervert knows he's talking to a little girl, thinks he's talking to a 14-year-old girl. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz, how would the autism affect Kelly's reasoning? Well, you know, there's various shades of autism, but in general, what we know is that children with autism tend to have trouble forming close relationships in person. They misread social cues, but they are significantly more vulnerable to forming relationships with people online.

We're not entirely sure why. Part of that is being a teenager. The other part of it is having a hard time making sense of danger and when something might be a danger. And so that would render her much more vulnerable. Daniel Jones, what is your message to the person that took your daughter? Well, we're not message to the person that took your daughter? Well, we're not going to stop looking. You know, we want her home. She needs to come home. I don't even know how to begin to get there, but we're going to find her. It's not a joke.

These people are sick in their own heads. I mean, they need mental help as well, but you know, they knew what they were doing. Kaylee didn't, you know, no, she, she got in the car or she, she got lured away by somebody, whether online or whatever. She just, somebody took advantage of her in some way, shape, or form, online, offline, and, I mean, she's gone. That's the point. She's gone, disappeared, vanished. If you have information on the whereabouts dial 770-830-5916. Repeat, 770-830-5916. You can even go online at K, as in Kentucky, Biggs, B-Brother-I-G-G-S, kbiggs at carolshariff.com. Please help us find Kelly.

Goodbye, friend.