AMBER GRAHAM - 14 yo - Aragon GA

Police and family members of an Aragon teen are desperately searching for the girl who went missing more than a week ago.
Capt. David Alexander of the Aragon Police Department said Amber Graham, 14,
was last seen when her mother told her good night around 11:20 p.m.
Feb. 20. Her mother reported her missing just a few hours later at 2:54
a.m. Feb. 21.


A relative said a kitchen window was found open.
At first, police classified the teen as a runaway but a relative said
Amber had a good relationship with her mother, was a good student, and
seemed really happy. She and her mother were talking about what they
would be wearing to church the night of her disappearance.
Amber is 4-foot-8-inches tall, weighs around 100 pounds, has blonde hair and
blue eyes. She was last seen in bedclothes, but it’s unknown what she
is currently wearing.
Alexander said it was hard to get an immediate jump on finding Amber because she was classified as a runaway.
“That’s our problem. She doesn’t meet the criteria of an Amber Alert, but we
have the federal marshals assisting us as well as Rockmart Police, Polk
County police, Floyd County, and Bartow County,” he said.
The family is growing more concerned with each passing day, a relative
said. They believe someone is with her or has her because of her age
and because she had no money at the time of her disappearance.
Family and friends have been canvassing neighborhoods and local towns all
weekend with posters. They hope someone will have a lead that will
bring Amber home.
Anyone with any information can call 911 or the Aragon Police Department at 770-684-6563 or 770-684-6564.

Police in the small Georgia town of
Aragon are stepping up the search for Amber Graham, a 14-year-old ninth
grader who vanished eight days ago.
U.S. Marshals and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation will be joining what
has been a low-key search for the last seven days as concern for the
girl’s safety mounts, Aragon Police Captain Dwayne Alexander said.
According to the girl's godmother, Ruthann Battles Dabbs, Amber's mother last saw
her in her bedroom at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday Feb. 20. The girl said she
would be ready for church in the morning. Amber's mother looked into
the room again at 2 a.m. and discovered that the girl was gone and her
bedroom window was open. The mother immediately called the police.Dabbs described Amber as quiet and sensible
and said, "She certainly wasn't wild or troubled," adding that the
girl's disappearance "was not what she was like." The girl is a petite
5-foot-0 and 90-pounds, with brown eyes and blond hair.
Alexander said Amber, a high school freshman, had "some history of running away,"
and because of that the search didn’t go into high gear until later in
the week. But now, he said, "we are looking at some subjects right now
for withholding information and we have conducted several searches.”He said the last phone call Amber made was to
her 16-year-old boyfriend on Sunday morning, “four hours after she was
reported missing. They talked for 10 minutes.”
He said a consensual search of the boy's house turned up marijuana in the
attic, and since then the boy and his mother have stopped cooperating.
"We believe he knows more than he is telling us," Alexander said.
He said police were able to track Amber's cell phone, but "the phone cut
off Tuesday and there have been no sightings, no contact since then.”
Ruthann Dabbs disputes the claim that Amber was a runaway or "any sort of
problem child, as that claim makes her seem." She Amber left home once,
but she left a letter telling her parents where she would be. She said
the girl's parents are desperate to hear from their daughter or from
anyone who has seen her.
Alexander said efforts to issue an "Amber alert" for the girl were turned down
because they couldn’t show that she was specifically endangered.
He said that the particulars of her case were put on the National Center
for the Missing and Exploited Children Web site last Friday. Ernie
Allen, president of the center, said it appeared the information has
not yet been posted and they waiting for a consent form from the
mother. "We expect it to be up shortly," he said.
Dabbs said Amber's family has been putting up posters of the missing girl
around town all week, but they are being torn down. She also said that
police had searched the house of her 15-year-old former boyfriend, and
"since then both the boy and his mother had hired lawyers." She said
Amber's friends have tried to get them to talk, but they have failed.
She said "The whole town has gone hush-hush," adding that there are rumors
flying about that have everyone on edge. "My husband says my
involvement is going to get my house blown up," she said.
Dabbs criticized police for failing to act more quickly and said the longer
Amber is missing, the more likely it becomes that she has been harmed.
"If they had just searched the area where her phone was last monitored, we would be better off today," she said.

An Aragon teen missing for more than a week was found Wednesday hiding
behind a wall at her boyfriend’s house, according to Raymond Kitson of
the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Amber
Graham, 14, was last seen when her mother told her good night around
11:20 p.m. Feb. 20. Her mother reported her missing just a few hours
later at 2:54 a.m. Feb. 21.

According to Kitson:

She was
found Wednesday afternoon and was questioned at the Aragon Police
Department. Her 16-year-old boyfriend was taken into custody and will
be housed at the Youth Detention Center in Rome, according to officials.

Stacy
Dukes, 2003 First Ave., Rockmart, is being charged with obstruction of
law enforcement and interference with custody in relation to the case
and will be held at the Polk County Jail.

Police had searched the house several times before finding her Wednesday.

Involved
in the arrest were the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task
Force, Rockmart Police Department, Aragon Police Department and Polk
County Sheriff’s Office.

A 14-year-old Georgia girl who had
been missing for more than a week was found Wednesday night when police
raided a house in a community not far from her home.
Amber Graham of Aragon, Ga., was found in a house in the nearby town of Rockmart.
Police, using a search warrant based on a tip, arrested the occupants of the
home: Stacie Fennell and her 15-year-old son, who was identified as the
girl's boyfriend.
Authorities said Amber was unharmed.
Fennell and the boy, who was not named because he is a juvenile, have been
charged with obstruction of justice, hindering an investigation and
contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to Aragon Police
Captain Dwayne Alexander. The pair are currently being held, pending a
court hearing.Alexander said Amber originally went along with a
scheme to run away to the Fennell home, but she seemed relieved when
police raided the home. According to Alexander, police learned that the
boy had a hidden compartment in his room that allowed Amber to avoid a
consensual search of the house last week.He said a tipster told police on Wednesday
about the hideaway in the home, which opened to an attic room. Police
then used that information to obtain the search warrant.
Police acted so swiftly that Amber was actually found in the boy’s bedroom, before she could be hidden.
Amber is currently in the custody of the state’s Division of Juvenile
Justice, Alexander said. He said there wasn’t an argument or fight that
precipitated her running away from her home. “The family seems to be a
loving family. There doesn’t seem to be any problems there,” Alexander
said.
Also taken away from Fennell's home were the family's 18 cats and three dogs.
Ruthann Dabbs, Amber’s godmother, said the family was elated that their ordeal
was over, and they were waiting for her to come home.
“It is a happy ending,” she said
Amber was last seen on Feb. 20 when her mother put her to bed. Later that
night, her mother checked her room and found that she was missing and
her bedroom window was open. Police originally treated the case as a
runaway, but they became concerned for Amber's safety when she failed
to return home and her cell phone could no longer be monitored. Over
the next few days they organized several searches, but they continued
to focus on her boyfriend’s house.
The boyfriend and the mother originally cooperated and allowed police to
search the house. In that search police found marijuana and charged the
boy. After that the family refused to cooperate further.
Friends and family say there are still questions that have to be answered, and
they speculated that Amber went over to the house willingly but was
forced to stay once the police became involved. Police refused to
comment on that possibility.

Amber Graham ran away because she wanted to be with her boyfriend.

That’s
the determination of law officials involved in bringing the 14-year-old
Aragon teen home after apparently hiding out at her boyfriend’s home in
Rockmart for the 11 days she was missing.

“I believe that it’s
kind of a Romeo-Juliet type of situation,” said Capt. Duane Alexander
of the Aragon Police Department on Thursday.

Alexander said
there was nothing unusual going on at home to prompt the girl to run
and nothing that raised family members concerns about the teen.

“I
can vouch for the family,” Alexander said, adding that he has gotten to
know them quite well during the investigation and search for Graham.
“They seem to be a well-kept family.

“In speaking with them every day, I’ve never gotten an indication there was any problems in the home.”

Police
said that drugs played a role in the incident. Alexander said some
illegal drugs were found at the boy’s home, along with some
over-the-counter prescription drugs that juveniles obtain for personal
use.

Graham was found Wednesday evening asleep in her
boyfriend’s bed at his residence at 2003 First Ave., Rockmart, where he
lived with his mother, Stacy Fennell.

Alexander believes she had
been there the whole time of her disappearance, even though police had
searched the home several times with Fennell’s consent.

He said she had hidden in an attic crawl space whenever police came.

Alexander
said there was a “natural space” in the 16-year-old boy’s bedroom
covered by wood paneling. The boy had removed a wood panel, removed the
nails and Graham used it as an entry to the crawl space.

The
police decided to obtain a search warrant to go look specifically at
that attic space Wednesday after they received tips Graham was in the
house and about the attic space.

Alexander said he and the Polk
County Sheriff’s Office went to the home and found no one home. So,
they secured the home from the outside and presented Fennell with the
search warrant once she, her son, and her elderly mother returned home.

Since no one had alerted Graham to hide, she was found easily.

The boy and mother were arrested at the scene while the grandmother was put in the care of a relative across the street.

Alexander said evidence found when they pulled back the paneling made the facts clear.

“In
this natural void, there was a small mattress. Our belief is she’s been
there the whole time. We believe the mother and boy conspired to pick
her up somewhere in Aragon, probably at her home,” he said.

The police captain said Amber seemed relieved her run was over.

“She wanted to come home,” he said, adding that she seemed to understand what she had done was wrong.

“She
was very remorseful. Really, at that time, she was concerned about her
punishment in this. She was asking questions about how things were at
the RYDC (Rome Youth Detention Center).

“She seemed to accept what her was responsibility was, but seemed to be relieved not to be where we had found her.”

She
and her boyfriend were sent to the RYDC and now will have to go through
the Department of Juvenile Justice to face their charges.

Graham
will be charged as a runaway and her boyfriend will face charges of
interfering with the custody of a minor, hindering the apprehension of
a runaway, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Fennell
is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor,
interference with custody, obstruction, and making false statements and
concealing facts. All charges are misdemeanors, according to Polk
County Jail reports.

Fennell remains the Polk County Jail.

Graham’s mother, Connie Dukes, was just glad her daughter was safe, according to Alexander.

“She was overwhelmed. She was very happy. She and her other daughter were here. There were a lot of tears shed,” he said.

Alexander
said he has also made Graham’s father, Ritchie Graham, who lives in the
Prospect Road area, aware of all the details of the case. He said her
father, although he has maintained a low public profile during the
investigation, has been actively involved and was relieved at the
outcome.

Graham’s mother wasn’t surprised at where her daughter
was found because she knew the teen had a boyfriend. However, Alexander
said she was surprised at the actions of the boy’s mother and,
naturally, has some anger toward the boy and his mother.

The
cost of the investigation is undetermined, he said. However, Aragon
officers are willing to turn their overtime into compensation time off
to save money. Other larger agencies, like the U.S. Marshals and the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation, likely would not have any additional
cost for working this case because they target these cases to work
every day, Alexander said.

He said, as far as he and the Aragon police are concerned, this case will not taint future investigations for missing children.

“Each case is taken separately and we have to treat it that way,” Alexander said.

The police captain hopes the charges will deter a similar situation from happening in the future.

“I
can only hope that it would deter any young people from conspiring and
pre-planning to do such a thing because it didn’t work for these
folks,” he said.