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Posted on 08/16/2018 8:30:56 AM PDT by texas booster
Panama City, Fla. - The teen who went missing from her home in Southport five years ago has been located and is safe, the Bay County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday.
Emily Paul disappeared five years ago. She recently wrote a letter to her parents saying that she was safe. In response, Captain Jason Daffin recorded a video message asking Paul to get in touch. He added that as an adult as long as she was safe he was under no obligation to let anyone know where she currently lives.
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"Emily stated that she was safe, she had a support system and she was happy where she was," deputies wrote. "She appeared to be in good health and she had arrived at the police station by herself and left by herself."
In response, the sheriff's office has closed their missing person case.
(Excerpt) Read more at mypanhandle.com ...
Hard to imagine the heartbreak of the parents.
Captain Jason Daffin, of the Bay County Sheriff's Office, said, “When I answered the phone it was a female voice, claiming to be Emily Paul. I asked the female on the phone if she could explain to me who the letters were sent to, and too, the contents of the letter.”
Officials say the woman on the phone was able to explain the letters.
Daffin continued, “So, at that point, I felt pretty comfortable I was speaking with Emily.”
When Paul went missing in April 2013, she reportedly packed a suitcase and left behind a note stating her plan to leave. Detectives believe the girl researched how to be a successful runaway online, The News Herald reported.
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Paul took the items she used to communicate online, including her Xbox, and has never signed on her Facebook account since leaving. In the week after she left her home, her cellphone pinged off three different towers in Callaway, near the port and near Southport Road.
Investigators with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office told WMBB that Paul’s initial note to her parents she might contact them after she turned 18.
Weird case. I wonder how they verified it wasn’t an abductee who became enamored of her captor.
Her contentment now as an adult doesn’t dismiss the initial crime, if one occurred.
Can’t imagine the Hell her parents went through. Unless it was truly a horribly broken home and spinning apart anyway. Maybe it was for the better. Never know.
A lot of people would leave, if they could come up with a way to support themselves. This girl may have just found a way.
She researched how to run away before leaving, so it sounds like she just decided to take off....with or without a boyfriend.
Having lots of experience with juveniles, I can safely say that sometimes they are more mature than their parents. Especially if sex abuse is involved, leaving helps the kid and relieves at least one parent of some sort of criminal referral. It’s not always parental “heartbreak” in these cases.
I saw this on the local news last night.
Southport is sort of a rough area of Panama City. Maybe that is too harsh but we had a bad experience there in 1952.
We were driving back home to Cedar Grove when Daddy suddenly swerved, trying to avoid a drunk driver. He hit the car and did a fair amount of damage but none of us were hurt.
When the Florida Highway Patrol showed up, several of the locals started trying to take up for the drunk. Daddy lunged at one of them, but the trooper caught him.
Then to make it clear to the locals, he said: “If any of you want to visit with your friend, he will be in the Bay County Jail”.
An ambulance came but we were all OK. The Nurse did ask each of us children things to make sure.
Never have cared for Southport since.
Please, to be clear. I have no knowledge of the details of this case and certainly and not implying that the parents were responsible or in anyway in the wrong.
Noted. Sometimes the fledgling simply needs to fly.
I notice one of the deputies was named Daffin.
I wonder if he is the Son of former sheriff, “Doc Daffin”?
Doc Daffin was known as an effective and brave sheriff, but later became controversial and thought to be corrupt. The Governor eventually removed him from office.
Does not appear to be anything like the disappearance of Mollie Tibbets.
Unless the parents were abusive, that’s a prety awful way to treat your parents.
AMEN!
Sometimes you never know what someone else is going through unless you take a walk in the others moccasins.
She was thoughtful enough to give closure and apparently she has supported herself and kept herself clean with no run ins with the law. There are plenty of kids who parents know where they are that haven’t done near as well.
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Sometimes parents are neglectful or misguided to the point where it is physically safer to leave.
Totally agree. There is a lack of detail in this story to make any determination.
If one of my kids were to do this, I’d at least hope that they’d send a post card and say that they are ok
I blame the lack of Public Pay Phones.
I'm wondering if she didn't fly straight into the waiting arms of a cult.
That might explain why she disappeared so completely, then turned up years later, in (seemingly) perfect health, and yet still isn't interested in having a relationship with her family.
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