Late in June, a 14-year-old girl who had run away from her grandparents’ home earlier in the month was found by authorities in the barracks of a California post, and a Marine was taken into custody.
NBC San Diego was the first to disclose the story, citing Melissa Aquino of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, who said the girl’s grandmother had reported her missing four days after June 9.
According to Aquino, the girl has previously run away from home but “always returned home quickly.” The girl’s profile was added to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database, among others. On June 28th, military police at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, located the missing girl. Nobody knows who the girl or the Marine are.
The tweet below verifies the news:
A Marine has been detained after a missing 14-year-old girl was found in the barracks of a California base camp, authorities say. https://t.co/36NFC0rBS8
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 11, 2023
The 1st Marine Logistics Group’s head of media strategy and operations, Captain Charles Palmer, informed NBC that the Marine had been detained for questioning by Naval Criminal Investigative Services on June 28.
The Marine is still in Palmer’s custody and has not been formally charged, he added. NCIS is receiving assistance from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force. According to CNN’s reporting, the sheriff’s office said they had returned the teen to her grandmother.
The California Examiner is the newspaper to read if you’re interested in staying abreast of criminal activity in California and the surrounding states.
You can find a list of links to relevant news articles published by the California Examiner below:
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