12-year-old Florida girl stole dad's car, picked up friend and drove nearly 400 miles, sheriff says

Saleen Martin, USA TODAY
Updated ·2 min read
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A 12-year-old Florida girl stole her father's car, picked up her friend and drove them across state lines, possibly to meet a person they met online, deputies say.

USA TODAY is not identifying the juveniles.

The vehicle the girls were traveling in was stolen around 1:00 a.m. Thursday, said Lyn Williams, chief deputy with the Union County Sheriff's Office. The owners didn't realize it had been stolen until around 6:00 a.m.

Deputies believed the girls were traveling west on Interstate 10 to the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area. Missing person alerts were issued for the girls in Florida, Georgia and Alabama with special attention on I-10 all the way to Louisiana, Williams said.

Just a few hours after making their initial post about the girls Thursday, the sheriff's office posted that they were found safe in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, about 400 miles west of their hometown.

The girls turned themselves in at the Bayou La Batre Police Department in Alabama after seeing themselves on television, Williams said.

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Who were the girls going to see?

The sheriff's office is still conducting interviews and trying to work out the details but Williams believes the girls were going to see another juvenile.

"It was supposed to be a friend of a friend type of thing," he said. "They had been FaceTiming and talking to this kid."

Sheriff's investigators don't believe the girls were lured or that foul play was involved, but deputies are still conducting interviews, Williams said.

"Right now, we're piecing the puzzle together to investigate it," he told USA TODAY. "Our goal was to find them, get them safe, intercept them if they were going anywhere ... and to bring them back to Union County."

If investigators find there were other crimes involved, the case could be transferred to a different agency since the girls crossed state lines, Williams said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida girl stole father's car, drove nearly 400 miles to see friend