Teen cheerleaders from Texas vanish after online conversations
07:35 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 28, 2009
By JONATHAN BETZ / WFAA-TV
IRVING, Texas — For days, mothers Michelle Martin and Sandi Trevino searched for their two missing girls. The 14-year-old best friends suddenly disappeared early Sunday morning.
“The longer you wait, the further away it seems possible they're safe,” Martin said through tears.
Her daughter, Destiny Sifuentes was last seen spending the night at the Irving home of her friend, Alana Trevino. Early in the morning, Alana’s parents awoke to realize the girls were gone.
From the beginning, police considered the girls runaways; a grandmother’s car was missing and the teenagers mentioned to friends they wanted to leave.
The possibility was hard for the families to understand. Both girls were cheerleaders, strong students and active with their families.
“Everything was fine; no fighting in our family, just a normal, wonderful household,” Trevino said. “They're really scared girls, they're not worldly girls; I don't know how to explain that.”
Nobody was prepared for what really happened.
From their kitchen table, the families launched a search and hired a private investigator.
Clues began to emerge.
They discovered Alana had been online, even though her parents refused to let her have a computer.
Still, the middle school student created accounts on popular social networking sites, like Facebook.com and MyYearbook.com despite her parents’ wishes.
“It's very shocking,” Trevino said. “She had to be doing it at other people's houses.”
Even more alarming for the parents was when they discovered men had been e-mailing their 14-year-old daughters. Several sent Alana flattering messages about her photos.
The teenage girl often wrote back and gave the men personal information, including her phone number.
“She gave every bit of personal information you should not give,” Trevino said. “She's thinking, ‘Hey, text me!’ and not, ‘Hey, this person can get to me.’”
The families’ private investigator, Billy Meeks, found several Internet chats and dozens of phone calls the girls had with strangers they apparently met online.
“We have one man here says he's 23 years old, talking to a 14-year-old, asking personal questions — that's alarming to me, because it appears he's probably a predator,” Meeks said. “Another looks to be 30, maybe 32, doing the same thing.”
Then, on Monday evening, the parents got the call they had been praying for. After nearly 38 hours away from home, the girls were found safe.
The teenagers had indeed stolen a relative’s car and driven across the country to North Carolina. Their parents fear they were heading to meet a man they found online.
The investigator had discovered multiple phone calls and messages with a man who lived in South Carolina and claimed to be in his 20s. But the teenagers’ trip was cut short when — their mothers said — they stopped to use the phone in the lobby of a Charlotte apartment complex.
It was there that a suspicious worker called police, who recognized that these girls had been reported missing.
Destiny and Alana are safe, but their mothers are still puzzled and troubled. They felt they were strict parents who were on top of their daughters’ behavior, especially on the computer.
“Look on the Internet, do some searches, you think, 'Not your kid,'” Trevino said. “Fourteen-year-olds are very impressionable, and these guys are saying scary things.”
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