ELAINE NICOLE "Nickie" SMITH and DEVON BROWN-STITES - 16 yo - Parke County/Rockville IN

ROCKVILLE — A Clinton teen has been missing from a Parke County foster
home for a week.

Elaine Nicole “Nickie” Smith, 16, was last seen March 8 at a foster home
in Rockville and is the subject of a missing person case in Parke
County.

Her mother, Joanne Collings, has placed signs in the Clinton and
Rockville areas asking anyone with information about her daughter to
contact her.

“I just want some sign she’s OK,” her mother said.

Nickie attended school in Terre Haute a couple of years ago, and has
friends in the Terre Haute, Clinton and Rockville areas. She is
described as 5 feet, 3 inches tall, weighing 112 pounds with blond hair
and blue eyes.

Anyone with information about her location is asked to call the Parke
County Sheriff’s Department at (765) 569-5413 or her mother at (765)
505-2203 or (812) 201-5420.

Two local teens go missing and police said they could be in danger.
It started as a runaway case in Rockville, Ind. last Monday, but
after a week of no contact from the two teenagers police said this case
is turning into much more than your average runaway. 16-year-old
Nicole Smith and 15-year-old Devon Brown-Stites met at Rockville
Junior/Senior High school. It's also where the story starts. Police
said both girls left school around 10 A.M Monday, March 8 and headed to
a nearby gas-station. Police said that's when one of their friends
drove them to Columbus, Ind. However, that's when police said this case
took a turn. Police said the two girls were last seen getting in a
blue, four-door car with two unidentified men in Columbus. An
alarming situation for police and Devon's father. "All fathers
would share the same concern, I think of these two gentleman as
predators, just because I don't know them, I don't know anything about
them," Devon's father Sean Stites said. Police and family said
Devon has run-away before, but always to a friend's house for for a day
or two. They said she's always kept in contact with them. "This
time, we have no communication with them and it's been over a week since
they've been gone," Rockville Police Officer Jon Van Hook said. In
fact, the girls' social networking sites have been a way to find
information, but they've found no Columbus, Ind. connections. Devon's
family said her MySpace account was also deactivated the other day.
Police said no one has heard from these girls, no one knows where
they are, and no one knows exactly what kind of danger they're in. Police
said they're unable to issue this as an amber alert, because they were
not abducted at the time they went missing. However, police have reason
to believe they could be an abduction-like situation now. If you
have any information at all on the whereabouts of 15-year-old Devon
Brown-Stites or 16-year-old Nicole Smith you are encouraged to call
police at 765-569-5200 Devon is described as 5'7" and 120 pounds.
She has brown hair and brown eyes. She has a small scar on her chin.
Nicole is 5'6" and 105 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Two runaway teens from Rockville missing for more than a week now face
juvenile court proceedings after they were found safe Tuesday evening in
Vigo County.

Elaine Nicole “Nickie” Smith, 16, and Devon Brown-Stites, 15, were last
seen at school on March 8, and were considered runaways by Parke County
authorities.

On Tuesday, the teens were taken into custody in Vigo County during a
traffic stop. They were briefly returned to Parke County to meet with
family members, and are now being held in a juvenile detention facility
in Vincennes pending an investigation.

Chief Deputy Jake Compton of the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department told
the Tribune-Star that the juveniles had been picked up in Indianapolis
by an adult friend and transported back to Terre Haute.

The teens had contacted various friends in recent days, and were
reported to be en route to the Terre Haute area Wednesday evening,
Compton said. A traffic stop was made on a semitrailer on U.S. 40 near
the Phoenix Hills neighborhood, and the teens were found in that
vehicle.

“We were happy to get them back safely,” Compton said of the teens, who
cooperated with authorities when taken into custody. Parke County
authorities traveled to the Vigo County jail to take the juveniles back
to Rockville.

The runaway case has ended positively for Rockville Police Officer John
Van Hook, who has been handling the investigation.

“My whole concern was that they were safe,” Van Hook said late
Wednesday afternoon.

As a police officer who enjoys working with young people, Van Hook said
he was familiar with these two teens, who are friends at Rockville High
School.

When the girls were first reported missing, Van Hook said he got a tip
that they had traveled to Columbus, Ind. He was able to confirm an
address where the teens were staying, but when police arrived there to
look for the girls, they were gone.

“We confirmed it, but we were a couple days behind them,” Van Hook
said.

The tips kept coming in, however, especially after information about
the girls was circulated by media reports this week.

“This next morning, my phone was ringing off the hook,” the officer
said.

A tip came in that the teens were at an address on the east side of
Indianapolis, and Metro police there assisted by checking that
residence. But once again, the authorities had just missed the girls.
Another tip came that the teens were on the west side of Indianapolis,
and surveillance was set up to watch that apartment. But somehow, the
teens were able to slip away and contact a person they knew who was en
route to Terre Haute.

By Tuesday afternoon, Van Hook said, he was “flooded with information,
and trying to put things together so they didn’t slip away again.”

He said he appreciated the help of Vigo County authorities, as well as
Indianapolis police and child welfare workers.

The investigation into the case is far from over, said Van Hook, who is
entering his fourth year as a full-time officer with Rockville Police
after serving a few years as a volunteer reserve officer.

“This is a positive outcome. Kids this age, they don’t realize the
dangers of being out on the streets by themselves,” he said.
“Fortunately, they were staying with people. But they really were in
danger.”