The search for a missing 12-year-old Georgia girl has ended after she was found 10 hours away in Ohio with a 34-year-old man she met online. Police say she was discovered after allegedly telling father to stop looking for her because she wasn’t coming home.
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According to multiple news outlets, 12-year-old Maria Gomez-Perez , of Gainesville, Georgia (50 miles northeast of Atlanta), was last seen on May 29 in the driveway of her home and found two months later on July 25 in Ohio with a man named Antonio Agustin-Ailon , of Guatemala. (Note: At a press conference on July 26, police said Agustin was 31 years old, but in an earlier statement, they said he was 34, which matches Ohio jail records).
During a press briefing, Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch said that the Georgia girl was found “safe and OK” in another state after having been missing for nearly two months. Sheriff Couch reported that Gomez-Perez was communicating with Agustin online prior to her disappearance. He said that authorities believe the child had been communicating with the man on Facebook and via other online apps.