A 12-year-old Hall County girl who has been missing since last month has been found and her father and her father’s girlfriend are now in police custody.
Brooklyn Smith’s discovery Sunday followed an anonymous tip from a caller to law enforcement authorities in Spaulding County, according to the Hall County Sheriff’s Office. The Hall County Division of Family and Children Services has taken her into custody. And Smith’s father, Stephen Spires, and Spires’ girlfriend, Carmen Clay, are now in police custody.
Smith said last week that she had planned her disappearance.
“I ran away,” Smith told Channel 2 Action News during a phone call, “and I had planned on running away for a month or so. “I was not kidnapped.”
Smith, who was the subject of a nationwide Amber Alert, reportedly was seen in Cartersville last week. Investigators believe she was with Spires and Clay. Smith previously told the station that she was not with them. The girl also told Channel 2 that “I was saving up money of, like, $500 or so” for her runaway. Further, Spires called Channel 2 to say he was not with his daughter, but knew she was safe.
“She’s probably safer now than where she was before,” Spires said.
Authorities did not believe the calls. There was an active arrest warrant for Spires for interference with custody, Hall County sheriff’s spokesman Stephen Wilbanks told Channel 2
“She’s so young and so impressionable that she may have been brainwashed, if you will, into believing what her situation is,” Wilbanks said.
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