Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Desperate Search for ELLA, 14, LURED ONLINE BY PREDATOR

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

January 6, Sarah Merril contacts the Mount Vernon, Washington, Police Department, reporting her 14-year-old daughter, Ella Jones is missing.  Ella Jones has not made contact with any family members or friends since.   After police released information about Ella Jones disappearance, some of her friends reached out to Merril, telling her that Ella had been talking to an older man on social media.  The morning of her disappearance,  the mom went to Ella's room and saw her window was open, but her phone, keys, and computer were left behind.   Merrill tells KING 5 Seattle that Ella left a cryptic message sayin she loved her mother and "didn’t want to hurt us anymore."  Merrill tells FOX Digital  it appears Ella knew where she was going because she took some of her belongings.  Visit here for the family's GoFundMe page Joining Nancy Grace Today: Sarah Merrill  - Ella Jones’s mother; TikTok, FB, X: @findellajones/ IG: find_ella_jones Kimberly Fierley - Godmother   Dale Carson - Criminal Defense Attorney (Jacksonville), Former FBI Agent, Former Police Officer, & Author: "Arrest-Proof Yourself;" Twitter/X: @DaleCarsonLaw  Caryn L. Stark – Psychologist, Renowned TV and Radio Trauma Expert and Consultant; Instagram: carynpsych/FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Bill Garcia - Licensed Private Investigator, "Bill Garcia Investigative Services;" Facebook: Bill Garcia Investigative Services   Anna Sonoda – Child Grooming Expert, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and Author: “Duck Duck Groom: Understanding How a Child Becomes a Target” Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter; Twitter/X: @nicolepartin   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I Heart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A beautiful young girl seemingly vanishes into thin air. Worst fears could be true. Has she been taken? Is she with a man she met online that apparently is much, much older than her? What is a little 14 year old girl doing with a much, much older man? Where is Ella? Is she still alive? Is she somewhere trying to get home right now?

If she is with some predator she met online, is she being disallowed to call home or contact her mother who is joining us right now? A warning to parents everywhere. But right now, let's bring Ella home. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to this.

On January 6th, Sarah Merrill contacts the Mount Vernon Washington Police Department and reports her 14-year-old daughter, Ella Jones, is missing. Since she left home, Ella Jones has not made contact with any family members or friends. Ella Jones is 5 foot 5 inches tall, weighs about 135, and has brown eyes and brown hair. Her mother says Ella Jones has very distinctive dimples. At the time she left, she was believed to be wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, multicolored plaid pajamas, and black Nike Air Force shoes. Joining us right now is Ella's mother Sarah Merrill and

I'm asking you please take a look at Ella Celeste Jones. Absolutely gorgeous beautiful dimples as mom points out. Light brown hair to me with a little touch of auburn to it. She looks like a very, very young Winona Ryder to me. Beautiful brown eyes, perfect porcelain skin. Where is she now? Is she being disallowed to call home? She has never run away from home. She has never, ever been this long out of contact with her mother. Right now to Sarah Merrill, this is Ella's mother, and you can find her online. Find Ella Jones. Ms. Merrill, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Ms. Merrill, tell me what happened. First of all, I want to go to the moment you realized Ella is gone. I woke up in the morning. I made myself

some coffee, kind of stalled and was trying to enjoy a nice quiet Saturday morning before everyone got up. I started to cook omelets and then I realized it was awfully quiet and it was getting late. So I decided to go check on Ella and wake her up. And that's when I discovered she was gone. You went to her room. Would she normally sleep in her room or fall asleep on the sofa? Where would she normally sleep on a Friday night? She's normally in her bed. So I went to her room. Door closed, door door closed is that normal it is okay so you're making omelets Saturday morning everything's quiet you go to her room you knock on the door you open the door and what do you see she was just gone uh I was immediately frantic and panicking.

I called her sister first, and then I hung up on her and called the police. Why did you call the sister first? I didn't know what to do, and I was still looking around the house to make sure that I wasn't just in a panic for no reason. That conversation was about 30 seconds long because then I hung up and called the police. I think all parents do the same thing.

They first look for the innocent answer. Is she in the bathroom? Did we cross paths? Is she on the front porch, the back porch? Is she somewhere around the house before you call police? So let me ask you this. Was her bed made or unmade? Unmade. Is that the way she had it the night before? Does she make it up every morning? That would be ideal, but she does not do that every morning. Gotcha. Does she have a window in her room? She does. Was the window open or closed? It was closed. Locked or unlocked?

Unlocked. When you go out her window, is it on a ground level or do you have to climb down? Or can you climb down? It's the first story window. So she could have gone through the window onto the ground. Or someone could have gotten her out that way. I believe that's how she left the house. Question, do you have a burglar alarm?

I do not. I have cameras on the doorbell and one left the house. Question, do you have a burglar alarm? I do not. I have cameras on the doorbell and one on the back and the back camera had been pointed up. So Ms. Merrill, you have a ring doorbell camera on the front door and the other camera, is that on the back door or the side door? I'd put it on the back of the house to shoot down across all the windows and the sliding glass door so that I had coverage. And can that be manipulated by digitally by your computer? Can it be manipulated or does it have to be physically pointed up like with a broom stick or something? It was physically pointed up. Got it.

Okay, what did you tell police when you call them? What did you tell them? That my 14 year old was missing and I didn't know where she was. And they immediately issued an ATO and then asked if I wanted to file a missing person. By that time I I had already... What's an ATL?

Attempt to Obtain. ATO. Attempt to Obtain. And they asked you if you wanted to file a missing persons report? Correct. Did you? Yes, I did. And what time was that?

Kim, do you remember? Also with us, Kimberly Feerly. This is Ella's godmother. It was in the afternoon. Well, yeah, because you didn't go try to wake her up until after 11 a.m. when you thought she had really been sleeping, you know, all night. Nancy, I know that Sarah called me at 1215 p.m. on Saturday, January 6th. And at that point in time, she had already contacted the police and filed the missing person's report.

Okay, so that's a lot within one hour. Guys, you are hearing the voice of Sarah Merrill. This is Ella's mother and Ella's godmother. So this all goes down either in the late night hours or the early morning hours of Friday, Saturday, January 5. I'm trying to figure something out. Sarah Merrill, when did you last speak to her? It was about 9 p.m. I had been tired from a long week of work. I was going to go to bed. She came in and laid with me in my bed for a few minutes. We talked and she said good night night, mama, and went to her room and I went to sleep. Interesting. Where do you work? I'm a chemist at a water quality lab.

When she came and laid in the bed with you the night before she disappeared, was everything okay? Was there an argument, anything like that at that time? There was no argument. We had a seemingly normal evening. It was normal for Ella to come and lay with me. What did you do? When you say a seemingly normal evening, what is a seemingly normal evening for you two? We had dinner together. At home? At home. Me, her, and her 8-year-old brother. The kids watched something on TV for a little bit, and then we got ready for bed.

And that's normal for a Friday night? Yes. Guys, joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, but tip line 360-428-3211. Very quickly after Sarah realizes her girl is missing, the specter of a much older man online, a predator, emerges. Take a listen to Dave Mack from Crime Online. Some of Ella Jones' friends were concerned for the 14-year-old and told her mother, Sarah Merrill, that Ella had been talking to an older man in his 20s or 30s that Ella met online. Non-omegal during the pandemic, but since the site closed down last November,

they continue to talk using Discord. Sarah confronts her daughter and, as punishment, takes away her phone temporarily. Joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Nicole Parton. Nicole, explain to me what we are hearing about Omegle and Discord. So Omegle is an app that has since closed an online site where it would match you with random people. So you would enter and you could begin to talk about things that were of interest to you. And then the program would match you with someone that they thought were a good match and place the two of you in a chat room for private chat. And it's believed that that is how Ella met this older man.

She was randomly chosen from this online site, matched with this gentleman, and they could chat in a private online chat room. Once that closed down, it's believed that she continued to communicate with him online via an app called Discord, which is a video talk text app that you can communicate with someone. crime stories with nancy grace anna sonota joining me child grooming expert clinical social worker and author of duck duck groom understanding how a child becomes a target. Anna Sonoda, thank you for being with us. It's very difficult for me to understand, and I'm not saying Nicole Parton is wrong. I think she's correct.

But it's hard for me to get my mind around a website that put a little girl, just turned 14, into a private chat with a man that apparently is in his 30s or 40s. Yes, Nancy. There's something very wrong with that. Yes, Nancy. into a private chat with a man that apparently is in his 30s or 40s. Yes, Nancy. There's something very wrong with that. Yes, Nancy. Omegle, it was a website that was started in 2009, and it was, you know, it's the World Wide Web. So it is a worldwide video or text random matching conversation avenue. It's free. it's anonymous, and it was heavily promoted,

especially to teens via TikTok. And we know that children are using social media at higher and higher rates. And one of the taglines is join at your own risk. There's no way to report, flag, or block users within Omegle. And it's also possible to record chats, which, again, could be videos. So there's no way to consent or maybe even have knowledge if you're being recorded. As it was already noted, it was shut down in November of 2023. But there are copycats. Parents need to look out for websites such as Chat Random, YouNow, Monkey, Chat Roulette, Tiny Chat, and TextNow, which are copycat. Wait, give me those names again, please. Chat Random.

Chat Random, YouNow. YouNow, Monkey, Chat Roulette, which is as just as it sounds, TinyChat, and TextNow. Not to mention the fact, Nancy, that many of these are selling information of the users. So we might be talking about personal information. We might be talking about hackers being able to access IP addresses and get locations on kids who are simply using it for connecting with friends or with random people. However, the risk factors are enormous. Alternatives that parents and kids can look at that are more controlled are things like child line and ditch the label, which are two safer options. Okay. Child line and ditch the label. Okay. What are they? Those are more supervised, more moderated, curated within the

safety context. What you have to remember is that, you know, parents are sold this idea that we can control through parental controls and settings, the online experience for our kids. And by and large, what's happened is technology is moving faster than the rules and policies. What can you tell me, Anna Sonoda, about Discord? So apparently this guy got her, this 14-year-old little girl, to move from Omegle, which was then shut down in November, to Discord. Tell me about Discord. Right. So Discord started in 2015.

It's recommended for kids 17 and older, but normally kids as young as 13 with parental supervision can use it. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When you say they can use it, can't anybody use it, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When you say they can use it, can't anybody use it and say they're 18? You're exactly right. You're exactly right. So anybody can get on there? Absolutely. There's no proof of age. Like a 40-year-old man talking to a 14-year-old girl. To Sarah Merrill, joining me, this is Ella's mother. When did you find out from the friends, I understand, that Ella had been online in some chat room with a guy that's at least in his 20s, possibly 40s?

It was my first stop Saturday morning. I immediately went to a few places that I thought would be more likely for Ella to be. Grocery stores that are within walking distance, it was chilly, so I was thinking about where someone would go if they wanted to get warm initially, and then I went to her friend's house, and it was there that speaking with her friend and her parents, they were very supportive. Her friend started telling me of these concerns of an older man and that she may have met him on Amigal. She also started calling other friends to see if anyone knew anything about where Ella was and she started helping me with the search. So let me understand the friend, Ella's friend, you're out looking for your

daughter. You're not sitting back waiting for the police to show up. You're looking for her actively. You go to the grocery store. She's not there. You go to the little friend's house. And how did you get her to tell you about the online meeting? She was immediately very concerned about Ella's well-being. Okay, I find that very, very interesting. Dale Carson, joining me, high-profile lawyer out of Jacksonville, former FBI agent, former cop, Miami Dade, author of Arrest Proof Yourself. Dale Carson, thank you for being with us. The little friend knew, not that this was wrong, but that it was dangerous. Because seemingly, pretty quickly, after Ella's mom comes to the home, where's Ella? She quickly gives it up.

It's not like Ella's mom had to pull it out of her. She said, hey, she has been talking to some older guy online. Clearly, the little friend was concerned. And if the little friend is concerned, that means it's real. It's a big concern because at that age, they think they're invincible. They don't think anything's going to ever happen to them, anything bad anyway. So for the little friend to be worried is very telling, Dale Carson. Well, absolutely it is. And it tells us, of course, that she was definitely communicating with her friends and not her family. And this is a real nightmare for every parent. It is frightening more than anyone seems to understand.

Well, I mean, the mother with us, Sarah Merrill, fearing her 14-year-old girl was lured on a social platform matching, quote, random people. And like Anna Sonoda was saying earlier, child grooming expert, it is like having your child play a game of Russian roulette, except instead of a bullet, they get an older man that has now lured them away. Right. An older man, a man who is prepared to do most anything to acquire the object of his desire and focuses all of his energy into doing that. And that's what

parents don't generally understand. These individuals are focused on that activity in a way a professional ballplayer focuses on their game. They're not just doing it randomly. Well, I want to explore what you're saying. Joining me, in addition to Dale Carson, Sarah Merrill, who is Ella's mother, the godmother, Kimberly Feerly, all searching, physically searching, having vigils, begging for help. Tipline 360-428-3211. Repeat, 360-428-3211. You know, Bill Garcia is with us, licensed PI at Bill Garcia Investigative Services. What he just said is right.

For instance, you and I work all day. These people sit at a computer all day and they fish and they search. It's literally like fishing. It's literally like hunting and they do it all the time. I have seen these guys, they're usually men, they may even be at work and they'll have their laptop up, they'll have their work screen up, and then they'll have another screen. It could be another laptop, it could be a gaming laptop. It could be their iPad. And they're trolling all day long. I mean, a little kid is no match for someone

that determined, Bill Garcia. Unfortunately, they are very determined and they spend a lot of time thinking about these things. For over 30 years, we've been helping families try to recover children that have been abducted under these types of circumstances, and it's only getting greater and greater. What do you do to try to find the child? What's your first move? Well, the most important thing is to have law enforcement get on the case as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, small departments or overwhelmed departments don't give it quite as much credibility as it needs to be able to jump on one of these cases quickly. And so, as time goes by, the difficulty factor gets greater and it becomes more difficult to actually find the perpetrator.

And unfortunately, with the passage of time, so does the distance between the location where they may have been taken from and where they have gone grows. To Dale Carson, 60 miles an hour times an hour, one hour, 60 miles, two hours, 120 miles, three hours, 180 miles, and so forth and so on. But in this case, Dale, let me go back to Sarah Merrill. You did immediately call police. Let me ask you something, Ms. Merrill. Has she, Ella, just 14 years old, has she ever gone 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours without contacting you? No.

Even if she is upset with me, she generally wants me around. We have a really close relationship. And also just to point out the mention of limiting social media, I had been limiting social media. I believe primarily most of our access was through her school computer. I had gone in December and spoke with the principal and the technology department to limit websites on her computer because I had found text now on history. So I had gone to the school to ask them to limit it because it was the only device that I didn't have access to parental controls. She did have a phone, but I had it so that her app store and Safari was shut off on it. She was still able to circumvent some of that. They're smart.

They really are. And here's the other thing to say, well, just take all their devices away. Anna Sonoda, in this world, the world we live in, it's a new world. They have devices at school. They have their phone, which if you'll notice, a certain generation, they don't even bother using their laptop very much or their iPad. Everything they do is on their phone. So if you want your child not to be stranded at school or not to be stranded after a game or they have a phone because to be so they can be in constant touch with you if they need you. Plus, you can track that phone with Life360 or find my iPhone.

But, you know, it's draconian. And I think a little, not a little, very unrealistic to say, well, they don't have access to digital media. They do. If they don't have it at home, they're going to get it at school or at a friend's house. It's going to happen. So instead of sticking your head in the sand and your butt in the air, you need to accept they're going to get their fingers onto a device. So now, now, what are you going to do about it?

That's the way I look at it, Anna Sonoda. Am I wrong? Phones are often given to children as a safety tool. The average age of a child getting their first smartphone in America is age 10. So when we expect these children to be raised in a digital native environment, and then we're not equipping them or equipping ourselves as adults to recognize what are the risk factors online. It's so easy to impress teens in person. It's even easier to impress them online. And grooming is the process of duping somebody in order to get what they want, in order to gain access to a minor. So when we are raising our kids, we're having to have those conversations that everything online

is fake. Everything is curated. Everything is made up. The only thing you can be assured of is that there has been a premeditation in conjuring up this picture or conjuring up this scenario. And when it comes to predation online, predators don't even need to come in through our threshold of our home anymore because the virtual world has taken over a large swath of the access for potential victims. And the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, just in 2021, had 29.3 million tips of online predation. To Karen Stark, joining me, renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan. You can find her at karenstark.com. That's Karen with a C if you try to locate her. Karen, thank you for being with us. You know, I don't think that parents should be made to feel guilty because their child has a cell phone. And you know our story, Karen Stark.

I was holding out until they were 14 to give them a cell phone or maybe 15. And then we went to a football game. My friend girl's son was in the marching band. and that was the night he was going to perform. So we all went. So John David and Lucy said to me, mom, can we go walk around and go get a whatever or corn dog with our friends? Like, sure. Come back in 20 minutes. 20 minutes passed, 30 minutes passed. I started getting nervous at 40 minutes, I got up and started looking for them. And guess what was right behind the stadium? Parents, grown women and men, tailgating like they were at a party for them.

They were drunk as skunks. I thought, my little girl, she was 12 at the time, and you know Lucy's very slight, is walking through this with a bunch of drunk guys. I don't know them. Karen Stark, there had to be 50 to 100 cars tailgating behind a high school football game. Why? I don't get it. But anyway, I swore right then, if I ever get my mitts back on them, they're getting cell phones. And Karen, I was standing there in a throng of people.

There had to be 2,000 people milling around. And I was looking, it was like a needle in a haystack. And guess what happened? Lucy, somebody grabbed me from behind me. It was Lucy. She had got her face painted with her little friends. They all had their faces painted with flowers. And right after that, John David walked up with two hot dogs, one in each hand.

And I thanked God and I went out the next day and they got cell phones so I could be able to find them. And in that moment, I wasn't thinking about a predator like Sarah Merrill is having to think about right now I mean I just can't even imagine what she's going through where is my daughter is she with this guy in his 30s where does he have her is she even alive why can't she call me I mean Karen the the, do you give them the phone? What do you do then once they get the phone? It's like the parent can't win. That's what makes this day and age so difficult, Nancy, your exact story,

because you want them to have the phone for safety reasons, just like one of the guests said. And so how do you cope with that situation? It's a conundrum. And the most important thing to realize is it's the spin line between not wanting to frighten them, but also educate children about these possibilities. They need to understand that not everybody who comes across as kind and charming and helpful, and that's exactly how these predators are. They're really, really manipulative, and they make you feel like they're your friend. And so they need to really talk to their parents. Karen's dark, truer words were never spoken. Sarah Merrill is with me, Ella's mother, and Kimberly Feerly, her godmother. When the little girl, the friend, told you she's been talking online to some guy, what else did she tell you?

She had mentioned she had seen Ella have a video chat with him, gave a vague description. It later came out amongst other kids that kids had been talking to each other and been concerned about it. Primarily the boys in the friend group had not liked it. Nobody had come forward with it. I had had conversations with Ellis and she was very little about stranger danger and not keeping secrets and the fact that online anyone could be anything and to never talk to anyone that you don't know in person was kind of my rule set. So, I mean, my warning to other parents is that you can do everything right and it still may not work. Exactly. You're doing exactly what I'm doing.

I try to monitor them. I tell them about stranger danger, everything you're saying. But enough about what coulda, woulda, shoulda, because you were doing everything right. No blame. Yes. Yes. In fact, you had taken her phone away when you thought she had broken a rule. You were monitoring her. You had gone to the school to ask them to limit her apps and her social media access.

But let's talk about this guy. The friend group had seen him. Is he a white male? We don't actually know if he is a white male. I think that kids have a really difficult time positively identifying people. And the context under which they saw him didn't really make him very clear. So he'd been seen possibly on Discord and he'd also been seen by another child possibly on Snapchat with Ella, which is a very common app I think most of us are pretty familiar with. And the descriptions between those two girls, which do not know each other, don't live by each

other, were very similar, as in that he had a slightly heavier set face, he had a chin-strapped beard, and he also had short yet puffy hair. And that hair was described as very dark brown, almost black. One child also said that in his video chat with her, he was wearing jewelry like a gold chain. He had a really nice watch on, perhaps a Rolex, and he was vaping on the screen. And so those were just some really specific details that were given to us about this individual. Suspect, online name, Keith. And remember, we don't know if this is real, because a profile shot could be completely different from what you look like. But these children, these teens, say they saw him on a video chat more likely to really be him so sarah merrill and

kimberly fearley i'm trying to understand were all the teens together and they saw the chat going on so you've got more than one witness seeing him correct no she was chatting individually at one of her good friends homes and then a couple months after that she was chatting individually at one of her good friend's homes. And then a couple months after that, she was chatting at a totally different residence with a friend that is not related. So the two witnesses we have saw this and tips came from the boys in the friend group based off of conversations they had been having in person at school and, you know, over the phone and text. And so the boys had come forward saying that she had mentioned this individual. She had said his name was Keith and she had said he was 30 or approximately in his 30s. Well, this is something I don't understand. Let me go to Bill Garcia. Anybody on the panel jump in.

It seems to me that her devices could be backtracked and we could go into her cloud and find out who this guy is and find out his IP address. I mean, is that not happening? Have they seized her items, Sarah Merrill? Do they have all of her digital items? About 10 days after she was missing, they did come collect her school computer and her phone and they are going through it forensically currently. And I haven't gotten any information as to where they've gotten with that so far. 10 days? Yeah. That's a long time. 10 days before they get the information. Sarah? Yeah. Okay. Kimberly Feerly is Ella's godmother.

Kimberly, jump in. Give me your analysis on what's happening right now. Currently, we are at three weeks of Ella being missing, and a great amount of the work, the investigative work, the community outreach, the contacts with transit centers, other police departments, have been done by our individual group of volunteers, friends, and family members that came together really quickly after we realized Ella was missing. It was very frustrating in the beginning because the police were simply not taking this seriously, despite the fact that we had multiple children coming forward and stating they believed she was speaking to this individual. They were afraid that she may have left with him.

They were afraid she was in danger. The police continued to treat that as hearsay. They were looking for what they would consider concrete evidence, some sort of picture, some sort of chat history that proved that she was talking to an adult. And they waited 10 days to take her devices. In that period of time, her mother, myself, one of our other good friends went through those devices. We actually hacked into all of her socials. We were pulling screen names.

We were downloading chat history. We were doing everything we could to try and find a username that might be associated with this individual who is calling himself Keith. And we have put together a group of approximately 10 individuals right now, primarily women that are really close to Ella. And we're working really hard to canvas and communicate with every possible location that somebody might take a kid and be hiding out. So we're covering Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho,

all the way up to the border at this point in time and getting Ella's information to as many people as possible. Anna Tann lure Ella Jones, Sarah's daughter. For instance, I know that Omegle is no longer working, but what about the others? The other sites she was using, like Discord, to talk to this guy. Because in order to have his profile key, whether that's his real name or not, you have to give them, the website, your real, a real email address. Right? Isn't that how it works, Anna Tonoda? So on Discord, where you have 200 million users, Nancy, there are different channels available to you. So you could have a private conversation.

You could post announcements. You could join a general chat. You know, it's, quote, your place to talk. So because there's no age verification and there's no identity required either. So you come up with your own username, which as you've, or an email address in order to establish your fake profile. Yes, that's correct. You have to have an email address for Discord. Kimberly, has there been any subpoenas to Discord or what's left of Omegle. You can actually go back to their records, even though they're closed now, or to any

other of the accounts she, Ella, was using. Has that happened? Yes, it has happened now, but it took them over two weeks to submit those warrants to the various social medias that we were concerned about. We actually asked them at day four of this to contact Discord and to contact TextNow because that was another platform we were aware she may have been using. And I personally sent that email to them asking them to put in a request, an emergency request for information from TextNow and asking them to subpoena from Discord.

And it took them about two weeks to verify with us that they had submitted warrants. Okay. The warrants will take a minute to turn around because then the companies themselves have to do the search. To Sarah Merrill, this is Ella's mother. And again, Ella is about 5'5", porcelain skin. Here, she looks like a young Winona Ryder, a very, like a teen girl, a 13-year-old Winona Ryder. That's what she looks like with longer hair.

Sarah Merrill, tell me about potential sightings of Ella. Again, tip line 360-428-3211. Tell me about potential sightings of your daughter. Initially, we had quite a few. Some were on local city transit buses. We tried to obtain video footage. Unfortunately, one of the first ones, the DVR on the bus was not operational, so we were not able to obtain that. We have had some other sightings. Unfortunately, again, we have not, someone's camera is either not working or we have obtained the wrong footage. We have not caught her on camera. We're getting sightings all over the place. I'm sure most of them are not Ella, but it is a sign that we have

gotten attention and we do have eyes out there looking and caring and helping us find her. So in that sense, it's hopeful. On the other sense, it's confusing because you don't know which direction to go. I've spent a lot of time, as well as Kim and some of our other friends, if we get a tip that we feel is more viable, we head right down to wherever that tip had come from and start talking to employees at the local stores in that area and trying to get her flyers up and trying to get further leads. Sarah, question. Do either you or Kimberly know whether anyone else in your neighborhood has ring doorbell cam? So that is something I did on day two.

So Sunday, after I'd found her, Sunday and Monday, I went around. Actually, I think the first one I gathered with my very closest next door neighbor was on Saturday. I started reaching out. I got into that next door app and put a post out and I went physically door to door. Unfortunately, most people have their ring cameras, their proximity turned down so they don't catch all the street traffic. So I wasn't able to obtain anything. How about any red light cams or business cams? So the red light cameras are public information. I would hope that the police had gone through it, but because I didn't have an exact time and they were treating

her as a runaway, I'm not sure what happened with that as far as the red light cameras. I did go to the local gas station around the corner and it's family owned and he had remembered Ella coming in and he was very eager to try to help and find anything on his cameras. But that would only be if they happened to stop there. Well, what about if they passed by there? Because that was a big factor in the Brian Koberger case. That was a real break in the case. There was a convenience store gas station at a corner, and after combing through records for hours and hours and hours, his white Elantra was spotted going by around 4 a.m.-ish in the morning the night of the murders.

So I'm just wondering, is there just wondering is there gas are there gas um gas tanks there there are yeah so those are usually covered with closed circuit tv would he let you go through that night till the early morning would he let you come through it i'm pretty sure he would he was very um forthcoming concerned and helpful he let you come through it? I'm pretty sure he would. He was very forthcoming, concerned, and helpful, and he had gone through it. I had also told the police that he was very helpful and willing and suggested that. I don't have all the details as far as what is going on with the police investigation. It's kind of a black box. Is this the Mount Vernon, Washington Police Department?

It is. Guys, again, tip line 360-428-3211. Ella is just 14 years old, and her mother has reason to fear she has been lured on a social platform that matches up random people regardless of age putting them into a private chat room. Ms. Merrill, why were her friend boys in her group so worried about this guy that we're calling Keith because that's what he was calling himself? Why were they so worried? In hindsight, as more time went by, the kids started opening up more and more and more things came out. And the perception that I was given was that they found it creepy and they didn't like it.

So that a couple of the boys had had a discussion between themselves in the past. Unfortunately, none of the children had come forward to an adult. Did they ever confront Ella about it? And if so, what did she say? I am unaware if that was something that happened. Guys, again, the tip line 360-428-3211. Sarah Merrill, how are you getting through the days and the nights? Not very smoothly. Sleeping was pretty much impossible for the first week, week and a half. I finally started sleeping a little bit more, I think just out of sheer exhaustion. I have been physically ill,

sick to my stomach, and my back is even going out. My body is just shutting down. If I'm not actively out looking for her or scouring the internet or doing something active, I'm breaking down and crying, which is not helpful for finding her or for my eight-year-old son. So I've been just trying to stay going. Do you believe Ella, your girl, is being disallowed from calling you to tell you she's okay? Absolutely. Why do you say that? There's no doubt in my mind that she would call me if she could,

and I wake up panicked when I do fall asleep. Something is really wrong. Please help us bring Ella home. Again, the tip line to help find this 14-year-old little girl, Ella Celeste Jones, 360-428-3211. There is also a family tip line, findellajones at gmail.com. Repeat, findellajones at gmail.com. Goodbye, friend.