Missing and pregnant 14-year-old girl found hiding in Michigan closet
02/09/2023 2:17 pm PST
PORT HURON, Mich. (TCD) -- U.S. Marshals located a 14-year-old girl this week hiding in a closet about a year after she was reported missing by her foster family.
In a statement shared by WDIV-TV, the U.S. Marshals Service Missing Child Unit in the Eastern District of Michigan found the "critically endangered" teen in Port Huron. The U.S. Marshals reportedly received the case Tuesday, Feb. 7, after a referral from Michigan State Police, who said the girl had been reported missing out of St. Clair County. There were allegations that the teen was "potentially being sexually abused."
Once the U.S. Marshals took the case, investigators reportedly "developed some solid leads," and worked with the Eastern District of Michigan Violent Offender Task Force, where they went to a home and made contact with the occupants. The two homeowners allegedly "denied that the missing child was at the residence and provided false information."
Marshals obtained a warrant to search the home and discovered the 14-year-old "hiding inside a closet."
She was taken to a hospital for a health evaluation and investigators learned she is "several months pregnant."
The teen had been missing since September 2021, WDIV reports.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Watson told the Detroit Free Press the girl was "crying" and "didn’t know where she was going to go" when marshals found her.
Watson said, "She was pretty terrified. And she was afraid of losing her baby."
The girl was reportedly reunited with her biological father. She previously lived with foster parents, and investigators are reportedly looking into whether she was kidnapped by her biological mother and the two jumped from house to house.
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