Current:Home > MyMissing teenager found in man’s bedroom under trap door-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Missing teenager found in man’s bedroom under trap door
View Date:2024-12-23 23:16:46
STANFORD, Ky. (AP) — Police in Kentucky found a missing 16-year-old North Carolina girl under a trap door in the bedroom of a 34-year-old man after the man’s mother called authorities to report a domestic dispute between the two, according to arrest reports.
When deputies with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the home on Christmas Day, Zachary Jones told them the girl had fled, but his mother disputed that and deputies began searching to check on her safety, the reports said. She was found “inside a bed room in a cut out door in the floor covered by a rug,” the report said.
Deputies later determined that she had been reported missing from Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Dec. 6.
The girl told deputies that Jones picked her up after making contact a few weeks earlier and that he originally told her he was 19. When they met and she questioned why he looked older, he told her he was 25, but she found out after getting to his home and meeting his family that he was 34, the reports said. She said he threatened her and told her to tell people she was 18.
She told officers that he had a gun and had threatened to kill her several times and that on the day they were found, they had used drugs and he had choked and assaulted her, the arrest reports said.
Jones was originally taken into custody because he tried to destroy drug paraphernalia that deputies found in the home while searching for the girl, reports said.
Jones admitted using drugs with her and having an altercation, but he denied choking her, one report said. Marks were visible on her throat, it said. Jones and the girl both said they had sex on multiple occasions, and Jones admitted to luring her by using an electronic device and taking her from her grandmother’s home in North Carolina, the reports said.
He was charged with multiple crimes, including third-degree rape, unlawful imprisonment, assault, strangulation, possession of a controlled substance and unlawful transaction with a minor.
It wasn’t clear whether Jones has an attorney. A phone number for his mother rang unanswered Friday, but she told WRAL-TV in North Carolina that she thought the girl was an adult.
“I asked him how old she was. He said, ‘She’s 19.’ So, I took that as the truth,” Rhona Jones told the station. “I believed him, because a lot of girls looked older than they are.”
She also said the girl didn’t appear to be held against her will.
“To me, she willingly came with him,” Rhonda Jones said. “I just feel like, they’d probably been talking. I don’t know how long he’s been texting her. From what the cops said that she was unhappy where she was at, and she felt like she was cared for and came with him.”
veryGood! (71)
Related
- Timothée Chalamet Details How He Transformed Into Bob Dylan for Movie
- Roy Wood Jr. exits 'The Daily Show' amid Comedy Central permanent host search
- Jury hears testimony in trial of officers charged in Manuel Ellis' death
- Police officer serving search warrant fatally shoots armed northern Michigan woman
- Why was Jalen Ramsey traded? Dolphins CB facing former team on 'Monday Night Football'
- What does 'ig' mean? It kind of depends if you're texting it, or saying it out loud.
- Bob Menendez's wife hit and killed a man while driving in New Jersey town in 2018
- WNBA officially puts team in San Francisco Bay Area, expansion draft expected in late 2024
- Inspector general finds no fault in Park Police shooting of Virginia man in 2017
- Man with handgun seeking governor arrested in Wisconsin Capitol, returns with assault rifle
Ranking
- Elena Rose has made hits for JLo, Becky G and more. Now she's stepping into the spotlight.
- Baltimore police ask for help IDing ‘persons of interest’ seen in video in Morgan State shooting
- 2 Ohio men sentenced in 2017 fatal shooting of southeastern Michigan woman
- Man, 77, meant to sell ill-gotten erectile drugs in sprawling Florida retirement community, feds say
- LSU leads college football Week 11 Misery Index after College Football Playoff hopes go bust
- Bodies from Prigozhin plane crash contained 'fragments of hand grenades,' Russia says
- North Carolina WR Tez Walker can play in 2023 after NCAA grants transfer waiver
- Body Electric: What digital jobs are doing to our bodies
Recommendation
-
Lions QB Jared Goff, despite 5 interceptions, dared to become cold-blooded
-
Indonesia’s agriculture minister resigns amid a corruption investigation
-
New Mexico signs final order to renew permit at US nuclear waste repository
-
Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger gives $40 million in stock to California museum
-
Prayers and cheeseburgers? Chiefs have unlikely fuel for inexplicable run
-
Nearly 50 European leaders stress support for Ukraine at a summit in Spain. Zelenskyy seeks more aid
-
Why the UAW strike could last a long time
-
Norwegian author Jon Fosse wins Nobel Prize in Literature for 'innovative plays and prose'