TAMARA BRADFORD - 13 yo - Horn Lake MS

HORN LAKE, Miss. - Horn Lake Police are searching for 13-year old Tamara Bradford, missing since Sunday. Tamara
was last seen around 1:00pm with an unidentified African American
couple in a maroon vehicle.

She is believed to be in the Memphis area,
possibly near Lamar & Ketchum, Winchester & Millbranch or
Hornsby & Wilson. Tamara was last seen wearing blue jeans, a purple top, black vest and tennis shoes. Anyone
with information on Tamara Bradford's whereabouts is urged to contact
Desoto County Crime Stoppers at (662) 429-TIPS (8477).

HORN LAKE – The search is on for a Horn Lake girl who left her
grandmother’s home on Sunday afternoon and has not been heard from or
seen since.

Lt. Scott Evans said police were notified Sunday
that Tamara Bradford, 13, had gotten into a maroon vehicle with a
yet-to-be-identified man and woman between 1 and 1:30 p.m.

Bradford’s
grandmother, with whom she lives in the 6000 block of Bentley Cove,
told police that the teen did not tell her of plans for leaving the
home.

“We believe this is going to be a runaway situation,”
Evans said. “But with so many days going by and nobody seeing or
hearing from her, we are getting more concerned.”



Bradford
is being considered endangered due to her age and could be in the Lamar
and Ketchum, Airways and Ketchum, Winchester and Millbranch or Hornsby
and Wilson areaa of Memphis, based on unreleased investigative
information.

Evans said investigators are currently working to
identify people who Bradford communicated with online in the days
before her disappearance.

Van Alexander, principal at Horn Lake
Middle School where Bradford attends classes, said staff and students
there are “very concerned.”


“She is a
good student and her teachers and friends miss her,” he said. “We hope
she is safe and unharmed and will soon be back at school. We are
working with law enforcement officials to help in any way that we can.”

Bradford was last seen wearing blue jeans, a purple top with black vest and tennis shoes.

Anyone
with information about her disappearance or whereabouts is encouraged
to contact Horn Lake police at 662-393-6174. Tips also may be reported
to Memphis police at 901-636-4449.

MEMPHIS, TN - Friends and family members are frantically searching for
a Horn Lake girl who has been missing since Sunday. They say
13-year-old Tamara Bradford ran off with a 24-year-old man after
chatting with him online. She was spotted in the Binghampton area of
Memphis.

Loved ones of Tamara Bradford passed out tons of flyers
with her picture. Her guardians say she chose to leave with the older
man, but now they're afraid for her life. They say it all started with
a conversation she was having online.

“I need some help, and, if
anybody can help me, please help me find my niece,” said Tamara’s aunt
Dysheena Dinkins, who hasn't seen her niece since Sunday.

“She's been on the chat line,” said Dinkins. “She was on the chat line talking to this guy.”

It was going on right in her home.

“I didn't know she was chatting online with this guy at all,” Dinkins said. “But my baby girl told me about it.”

By then, it was too late. Dinkins says a 24-year-old Memphis man picked her up at her home in Horn Lake.

Dinkins says Tamara called a friend Thursday and told her she was in Binghampton.

“She was calling, and she was crying,” said Dinkins. “And she was saying that she wanted to come home.”

Now a search party is scouring the area where she was last seen. They’re following up on every lead.

“I
saw her. She was walking toward that way,” said Binghampton resident
Dewayne Foster. “I don't know where she was walking from, but she was
walking toward that way.”

The Memphis-FBI Crimes Against
Children Task Force says parents need to be vigilant and monitor their
kids' activities online. Kids can be approached by dangerous people,
not just in person, but online. Predators can easily make their way
into your home. For now, the search for Tamara continues.

Annette
Cotton with the Crimes Against Children Task Force says they are
aggressively pursuing online predators, but the game is always
changing. She says cell phones becoming just as big of a problem as
computers. And parents need to monitor them just as closely.

Tamara
Bradford was last seen wearing blue jeans and a purple top, with a
black vest and tennis shoes. Call police if you have seen her.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A 13-year-old girl reported missing in Horn Lake, Mississippi is back home.

Family members say Tamara Bradford called her grandmother Saturday morning,
asking to be picked up. The teenager was in Binghampton and had been
missing since Sunday.

Family members told Eyewitness News that the girl left with a 24-year-old man she met in an online chat room.

HORN LAKE – A Horn Lake girl returned home unharmed Sunday after spending nearly a week on the streets of Memphis.

Tamara
Bradford, 13, disappeared from the 6000 block of Bentley Cove on Jan.
10 and was not heard from or seen again until she called her
grandmother Sunday morning to pick her up along a street in the
Binghampton area.

Horn Lake Police Lt. Scott Evans said the
teenage girl apparently ran away from the home she shared with her
grandmother, with a 24-year-old man she met in an online chat room and
his mother helping her reach her goal.

“She just used him to get
up there,” he said about the 24-year-old whose mom drove the car in
which Bradford fled Horn Lake into Memphis.



Evans
said the mother told police she questioned Bradford about her age
before leaving Horn Lake but that the teen said she didn’t have her ID
with her.

The mother also said she was with her son and Bradford
for a short time at her home before taking the teen to what she
believed was the home of Bradford’s cousin.

“She actually had no relative there,” Evans said. “The woman just let her out on the corner.”


From there, Bradford spent the majority of her days on the streets and bounced from “place to place” at night.

“We
don’t really know where she was the whole time,” Evans said, noting
that investigators still have questions for Bradford. “I think she was
just liking her freedom until she learned life on the streets was not
what it is cracked up to be.”

He said Bradford has received a juvenile summons for Youth Court.

The
24-year-old man and his mom have not been arrested locally for helping
Bradford run away. Evans said Memphis police are investigating whether
Bradford was victimized while with the mother and son or on the streets.