JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (Note: The video above is from a previous related report.)
An incident report from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office reveals new details about what led to a missing 12-year-old girl from North Carolina and 15-year-old Jacksonville boy being found safe.
A witness told JSO the girl took a taxi all the way from North Carolina to Jacksonville to meet the boy. He was supposed to meet her at the McDonald's on Cassat Avenue, the incident report says, but told her on the drive down that he was scared.
On March 6, the report says, a McDonald's cashier saw the girl enter the restaurant at 5 a.m. and sit in a booth for at least an hour and a half. Another witness says they saw the girl get out of a taxi around 2 a.m., when the taxi driver called the witness over and asked him to watch over the girl.
The witness says the girl told him she was 18 or 19, but he did not believe her. She told the witness she had paid $800 for the taxi ride from North Carolina to meet an 18-year-old male, but did not tell the witness his name or phone number.
The witness told police the girl said the boy had texted her on her drive down from North Carolina, and that was the last communication she had from him. She tried to reach him while still with the witness, but could not reach him. She told the witness she would not go back home to North Carolina "because if she did her mother would kill her," the report says.
When the McDonald's opened for business, the witness left.
Police canvassed a nearby motel and gas station, where they were told someone might have seen the girl around 7 a.m., according to the report.
A witness at the Sleep Inn on Ramona Boulevard told police she saw the missing teens on March 6 around 7 p.m., the report says.
A second report says the teen boy's father reported him as a runaway to police the same day. The father said he searched the house and tried calling his son, but could not reach him, according to the report. He also drove around the neighborhood looking for him and checked with his mother and brother who live nearby and could not find him.
Later, police texted the missing boy who said he was OK, hanging out with some friends and would return later, the report says. The officer asked the boy to meet him or call him and he refused, according to the report.
The report goes on to say that on March 8, after the two teens' pictures had been distributed as missing juveniles, a witness told police he saw two juveniles laying on the ground under a blanket by the baseball dugout at Lem Merrett Park. Several JSO officers responded to the park and found the two missing teens. The teens said they were not hurt and did not need food or water, the report says.
The girl told police she met the boy online in June 2020 on an app called WIZZ and that they were girlfriend and boyfriend, that they were in love and wanted to be together, according to the report. She said it was her idea for the two of them to run away together, and that the boy had called taxi companies in North Carolina until he found a driver willing to bring her to Jacksonville for $800, which she had saved up from birthday and Christmas money, the report says.
The pair had sat in the lobby of a Westside hotel until they were made to leave by an employee, then hung out at Madelyn Oaks Apartments before sleeping in the dugout at the park, the report says.
The officer told the girl that she and the boy had "made several poor decisions which put them in danger," the report says, and she assured police she would not run away again.