TABITHA KNIGHT - 16 yo - Crestview FL

CRESTVIEW — Tabitha Knight might just be another teen to some people, but she’s everything to her dying mother.
“I just need her to come home. I’m sick. I don’t have a lot of time,” said Amy Knight, who has terminal cancer.
Doctors didn’t expect Amy to make it past Christmas, but she’s still
holding on and hoping her daughter will walk through the door.

Tabitha’s parents last saw the 16-year-old about 10 p.m. Jan. 26.
Her father, Charles Knight, discovered she was missing when he went to
wake her up for school the next morning.
They reported her missing to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, but aren’t sure how actively lawmen are looking for Tabitha.
“The police, I understand, there’s only so much they can do,”
Charles said. “It’s kind of a sad situation. Based on her previous two
runways, they’re looking at her case saying, ‘We’re wasting our time.
We’ve got other things to worry about,’ which, you know, goes back to
the whole cry wolf thing.

“This particular instance, (though), her mother is dying of cancer.
She’s already on her last things she can do. She’s already had her life
supply of chemo and radiation.”
Charles has called the last numbers dialed on their telephone and
back-traced the numbers online, but it hasn’t brought their daughter
back.
“I’m doing what I can, but at the same I have to take care of her
(mother), too,” he said. “I’m not able to do as much as I normally
would because I’m not comfortable leaving her alone.”
The Sheriff’s Office most recently contacted Fort Walton Beach
police to check out an address where Tabitha might be staying, said
Sheriff‘s Office spokeswoman Michele Nicolson. That lead didn’t pan out.
The first two times Tabitha left home, her mother was healthy enough to look for her. She doesn’t have that luxury this time.
Instead, Amy said she is constantly monitoring her e-mail and has even reached out to her daughter on Facebook.
“I love her and nothing she can do will change that,” she said. “Get her to come home.”

CRESTVIEW — Tabitha Knight has been located.
The parents of the 16-year-old runaway found her at a home in Fort Walton Beach nearly a month after she first disappeared.
“We’re happy to have her back, but we’ve still got some issues we have to work out with her,” said her father, Charles Knight.
The teenager ran away sometime after 10 p.m. on Jan. 26, and the
search to find her was one against time as her mother, Amy, is battling
terminal cancer.
Tabitha was located Sunday at a home on Coral Drive by police, Charles said.
Early on in the search, the family had narrowed in on the Coral
Drive home because it’s where the man Tabitha had been dating lived.
Police went to the home several times, but either found no one home or
were told Tabitha wasn’t there, Charles said.
Over the weekend, Charles received a phone call that Tabitha was
walking down Hollywood Boulevard toward the Coral Drive home and he
asked the police to check it out.
Initially, no one answered the door at that location, but eventually
a man answered and confirmed Tabitha was there, Charles said.
“She’s just not ready to face reality, but one day she’ll have to whether she likes it or not,” he said.
As of Monday morning, Tabitha was staying at Hope House Youth Center
where Charles hoped they could receive the help that they need to
reunite as a family.
“You really can’t tell someone that age, I know being a child myself
no one could tell me anything cause I knew everything and I didn’t need
anybody’s help, but hopefully we can get this all resolved,” he said.