Missing teen found in closet of MI home over a year after disappearance, officials say

A 14-year-old girl missing for over a year ago was found hidden in a closet at a Michigan home, officials told news outlets.

The U.S. Marshals Service took charge of the case on Tuesday, Feb. 7 and within hours their investigation led them to a house in Port Huron, Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Watson with the Eastern District of Michigan, told WDIV.

“Information was that she may be being trafficked,” Watson said, per WDIV. “There was some evidence of sexual abuse and the belief that she was pregnant and in danger. She’d been missing since September 2021, so I got the case (Tuesday), began working on it immediately, and we recovered her about 5:30 that same day.”

There were four people in the home when the Marshals searched it, the Detroit Free Press reported. The occupants initially denied knowing anything about the missing teen and wouldn’t let the Marshals inside — so they came back with a warrant.

All four were held in the living room, and while Watson’s team looked around, he interviewed the residents, he told the newspaper. As he was speaking with the occupants — who continued to deny having any knowledge of the girl — a member of Watson’s team called out from a closet down the hall.

“Once my task force officer pulled back the clothes and saw her, she was obviously identified,” Watson told the outlet.

She was several months pregnant, officials told The Detroit News.

Since her disappearance, the girl had been moving back and forth between Port Huron and Detroit, she told the Marshals, the newspaper reported. Despite investigator’s fears, there were no signs she was a victim of human trafficking.

None of the four adults at the home were arrested, according to the outlet, though Child Protective Services is pursuing kidnapping charges against the girl’s birth mother.

After being taken from the home, the girl was examined by a doctor and put in the custody of her biological father, The Detroit News reported.

“Sometimes I break down in tears when I find these kids because it means a lot,” Watson told WDIV. “I’m a parent myself, and I can’t imagine if I were in one of these folks’ shoes and I didn’t know where my kids were.”

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