A man who allegedly took a 14-year-old girl from Maine shot and killed himself in a Cobb County home Tuesday as Smyrna police closed in on him.
Sgt. Louis Defense, spokesman for Smyrna police, said cops executed a search warrant at 8 a.m. at a home on Parks Edge Drive near Campbell High School.
After the officers entered the home, they heard a single gunshot and found Robert Gooden dead, Defense said.
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“We had nothing to do with the self-inflicted injury,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, later adding: “It’s a tragic situation, and we’re remorseful for the family that had to endure this.”
The missing girl was inside the home at the time.
According to The Kennebec Journal in Maine, the 35-year-old man picked up the teen from a foster home in that state and was facing charges for doing so. The newspaper reports that the pair met online and the girl left of her own will.
The Maine State Police said on Facebook that she'd been missing since Feb. 27.
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That agency reached out to Smyrna police on Monday, said Defense, because they somehow believed the girl was with Gooden in Cobb County.
Smyrna police confirmed she was there; Defense wouldn’t indicate how they knew so, saying he didn’t want suspects to know how they find them.
He said the girl is safe but would not reveal what would happen to her next.
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