PORT HURON, Mich. — Federal agents said they found a teenage girl who had been missing for more than a year hidden inside of a closet.
A U.S. Marshals fugitive team found the 14-year-old girl in a Port Huron, Michigan home on Tuesday and took her to the hospital, where she was found to be pregnant, The Associated Press reported.
“She was crying,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Watson told the Detroit Free Press. “She didn’t know where she was going to go. She was pretty terrified. And she was afraid of losing her baby.”
The victim, who was not identified, was initially reported missing in September 2021 by the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office, WDIV reported. Watson told the station that his office only received a referral to the case on Feb. 7, and successfully recovered the teenager within hours.
“Information was that she may be being trafficked,” Watson told the station. “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.”
The teenager was found hiding in a hallway closet behind some clothes, and the four adults inside the home acted surprised, according to the Detroit Free Press. Watson told the outlet that the victim was estimated to be four to five months pregnant.
Investigators are planning to file parental kidnapping charges against the teenager’s biological mother, who did not have custody, the AP reported. Investigators said the mother found the teenager and moved her from house to house.
The 14-year-old was reunited with her biological father, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“She was ecstatic about that,” Watson told the newspaper. “She was just afraid that if she was found she would go back in the system.”
