KELSEY RAY - 16 yo - Superior (NW of Missoula) MT

Kelsey Ray left the home of Kegan Salter's family in western Washington
Thursday afternoon about an hour and a half before police interviewed
Salter's father.



Lt. William "Lin" Tucker of the Sedro-Woolley Police Department
reported progress Thursday in the investigation of the 16-year-old
Superior girl missing since Sunday, May 30. Kelsey is in the company of
Kegan Salter, 18, Sedro-Woolley. Sedro-Woolley is about 65 miles north
of Seattle.

When the detective spoke with Salter's father, Joel, at about 3 p.m.
Pacific time, he reported that Salter and Kelsey had been at the house
about an hour to an hour-and-a-half earlier, and that Salter's
stepmother, Summer, had given him money to return to Montana and face
his legal issues.

The detective said the stepmother also told him that the two had
previously been staying with a Salter relative in Kirkland, an Eastside
Seattle suburb.

Salter and Kelsey were said to be traveling in a red two door vehicle
with Montana plates, Lt. Tucker said.

There are a lot of Salter family members in and around Sedro-Woolley, he
added, noting that police officers initially made contact with Salter's
uncle before locating his father.

Wanted posters created by Kelsey's parents, Kevin and Monica, and
distributed using Facebook and other social media, were being placed in
Sedro-Woolley patrol cars and posted in city hall, Lt. Tucker said.

Detectives would be checking two homes in Sedro-Woolley where the family
used to live, "just in case the kids gravitate back there," he said.
"One was abandoned, so we will watch to see if the kids try to break
into the abandoned house."

The investigators are also checking in with Salter's friends, "just in
case he's looking up old buddies," Lt. Tucker said.

"Our focus right now is getting the girl back," he said. "He has
outstanding warrants and is wanted, but that's secondary. We just want
to get the girl back," he said.

Kelsey is 5'6", 115 pounds, with strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes.
The Facebook group "Find Kelsey Ray" contains posters with photographs
of Kelsey available for download; a poster is also available from http://www.clarkforkchronicle.com/dow...issing.pdf
. The posters note that anyone enabling a minor child to stay in a home
without parental or guardian permission is committing a crime and can
be charged with custodial interference, or more.

Kegan Salter is 5'5", and his picture appears in a Wanted poster at http://www.slideshare.net/jammediagroup/wanted-ke
, on his MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/523968923
, and for download at http://www.clarkforkchronicle.com/dow...wanted.pdf
.

Any and all tips relating to Kelsey Ray may be relayed to the Mineral
County Sheriff Department at (406) 822-3555, (406) 544-3098, or your
local law enforcement.

A Montana teenager who was the subject of an intense search effort
using the power of the Internet and social networking is safe and headed
home.


Kelsey Ray, 16, disappeared during Memorial Day weekend from her home
in Superior in Mineral County. Sheriff's deputies believed she had
runaway with 18-year old Kegan Salter who was wanted on a couple of
felony warrants. There had been reports the two had met online.
What made the case unique was how the girl's friends and family used
sites like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word of her disappearance
and their concern all over the region.
They even started a "Find Kelsey Ray"
page on Facebook. All that shared information seemed to point to her
being in Western Washington, where Salter's family lives.
Word came out on Monday night that Ray had shown up at a local police
station in Washington State and is safe and sound.
Her mother sent out a "tweet" this morning to all the family's
supporters saying her daughter was on her way home.