ALEXIS DUFF - 15 yo - Canton (E of Ann Arbor) MI

Canton police are searching for another 15-year-old
girl missing from the same Canton foster home from which
runaway Devon Kroetsch fled before she was found May 7 and turned over
to Wayne County juvenile authorities.



The latest runaway, Alexis Duff, fled the foster home May 17. Police
described her as a blue-eyed, brown-haired girl who is 5-feet-5-inches
tall who weighs 100 pounds.Anyone who has seen Duff is asked to call the Canton Police
Department at (734) 394-5400, or anonymous tips may be made to Crime
Stoppers by calling (800) SPEAK-UP.Before she disappeared,
“she was going to be put on a tether because she keeps running away,”
Canton police Sgt. Mark Gajeski said.It wasn’t clear
whether state foster care officials might investigate the home after a
second girl has been reported missing.“It’s not a group
home,” Detective Sgt. Dave Schreiner said. “It’s our understanding that
(Duff) was placed there through a foster care agency. The lady she was
staying with is a foster care parent who takes in children who are
within the foster care system.“It’s just situational that
it’s the same house again,” Schreiner said. “We’ll do our best to
continue our attempts to find this girl.”Kroetsch fled the
home March 1 and remained missing for two months, until authorities
found her staying with people she knew in Eastpointe.Barring
a tip from the public, authorities said it’s difficult — even though they try —
to locate a runaway teen for several reasons:

• They often don’t work and, therefore, can’t be found at a workplace.
  
• They typically don’t have credit cards and can’t be traced based on charges.
  
• They aren’t driving their own vehicle, so police can’t put out a bulletin for the public to watch for a specific car.
  
• Because they are in foster care, they have less ties to the community in which they have been living.
  

Ultimately, police find themselves dependent on information they may receive from a foster
child’s friends or associates.

Canton police
Tuesday found a 15-year-old girl who had been missing from a Canton
foster home since May 17.
Township detectives said Alexis Duff was safe and not being held
against her will at a Detroit residence,
and they turned her over to Wayne County juvenile authorities.Duff had fled the same
foster home as runaway Devon Kroetsch, 15, who disappeared March 1 and
was found two months later staying with an acquaintance in Eastpointe.Duff
was missing for three weeks before she was found. Detective Sgt. Dave
Schreiner credited another Detective, Mike Wells, for an investigation
that led police to the residence where Duff was staying.She
was taken into custody without incident.Police Sgt. Mark
Gajeski said after Duff disappeared that “she was going to be put on a
tether because she keeps running away.”Canton police have
said they are hopeful that both Duff and Kroetsch will get the help they
need from juvenile authorities.Public Safety Director
Patrick Nemecek on Tuesday underscored, again, the difficulty
law-enforcement agencies face in finding runaway teens.The
runaways typically don’t have jobs and don’t have credit cards that
authorities can use to track their whereabouts, he said.Schreiner
has said runaway teens typically aren’t driving a vehicle, so police
can’t put out a bulletin for a specific car.Even so, Wells
was credited with finding other means to locate Duff — helping Canton
police to solve two missing-teen cases in a row.