LCPD helps locate missing teens from Oklahoma City.
A pair of Oklahoma City teens were reunited with their families after a “road trip” getaway that involved stealing an older relative’s car.
According to a Lake City Police Department release, officers received a call around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday by a family in Oklahoma City related to a search for their runaway daughters. Kalin Jones, the mother of 13-year-old Sagen (whose last name was not released), said that Sagen and her 15-year-old cousin Persia, came up with a plan to take their grandmother’s car to “go on a road trip.” The girls then stole the car and left Oklahoma City on Oct. 28.
The release states that on Oct. 30, the girls were officially documented as missing juveniles by the Oklahoma City and Stillwater police departments. That allowed authorities to ping one of the girls’ cell phones, which indicated the pair was traveling south. However, the ability to ping a phone expires after a while, with that one expiring around the time Jones contacted LCPD.
A Be on the Look Out (BOLO) notification for the stolen vehicle was issued after that, according to the release, which allows the license plate and vehicle to be listed as stolen in law enforcement data centers.
Jones eventually called back in, saying she’d been able to get some more information from the teens’ cell phone records, which showed they’d talked with Florida Highway Patrol around noon that day.
An FHP officer told LCPD’s Public Safety Communications Supervisor Jordan Little that the girls had car trouble but that they weren’t with the car at the time of the call and couldn’t provide law enforcement with a location of the vehicle. FHP officers asked the girls to call back once they’d returned to the car, but the call never came.
That led to authorities pinging the cell phone again, which showed the two were in Gainesville, according to the release.
Around 4:36 a.m. Thursday, the girl’s cell phone died, which cut off the pinging law enforcement could use to track them. Around 8:30 that morning, the Gainesville Police Department picked up the license plate on its scans. The vehicle was found parked in a Gainesville neighborhood with both girls asleep inside. Officers took them to the GPD station and called their guardians. The family reunited in Gainesville before stopping by the LCPD to express their gratitude toward the people working the case.
“We are proud to have such compassionate and dedicated members of the Lake City Police Department,” Chief Gerald Butler said in the release. “These girls are fortunate to have caring and loving families who did all they could to located their loved ones. They are equally as fortunate to have had PSCO Supervisor Little working their case. PSCO Supervisor Little’s actions and devotion to his profession will not go unnoticed.”