Missing Girl Found Met Sex Offender on MySpace.com

by mpress | October 2, 2007 at 08:54 am

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Update: A teenage girl was
found alive and well after she sneaked out of her house to rendezvous
with a high-risk sex offender she met on Myspace.com, a sheriff said
Tuesday.

Alyssa
Frank, 15, was found safe in the Florida Panhandle a day after she
disappeared, but the man accused of running off with her was still on
the loose, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

This has become an epidemic in South Florida.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
Florida ranks third in the nation with more than 42,000 registered sex
offenders. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement website, there
are more than 280 missing sex offenders and predators in South Florida.

*The Florida Attorney’s General’s Office is going through more than
1,500 names of possible Florida sex offenders and predators to see
whether they used MySpace accounts. BARTOW,
Fla. — A teenage girl is missing after she sneaked out of her house to
rendezvous with a high-risk sex offender she met on Myspace.com.

An Amber Alert was issued for 15-year-old Alyssa Frank.

The suspect, William Joe Mitchell, 46, has a violent past with more than a dozen arrests, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

“He lured her away and now he’s got her, and we’ve got to have her back. Safely,” Judd said. “We are, as I’ve said before, incredibly concerned.”

Judd said the two met on the social networking Web site and began a relationship. Judd said Alyssa sneaked out of her house to meet Mitchell at about 3 a.m. Monday and was reported missing about three hours later.

“We know, from all of the investigation up to this point, that they left together. Alyssa contacted some of her friends and said that she was running away,” Judd said. “When they asked, ‘Well, why are you running away?’ She told them ‘for love.”‘

Judd said Mitchell had 14 prior arrests on charges including burglary, aggravated assault with a weapon, grand larceny, bomb threats, extortion and offense or offer of lewdness and lewd and lascivious behavior. Mitchell is on probation.

Source: Fox