Clayton County police gave heart-wrenching details Monday of the rescue of a 13-year-old boy who had been reported missing for four years.
The boy, who remains unnamed, led police via cellphone texts to his mother to a tiny crawl space between the garage and attic of his father’s Jonesboro home — even as his father and stepmother denied knowing the boy, officer Joanne Southerland said during a press conference Monday afternoon.
The boy was found in a space behind the linen closet in the wee hours of Saturday morning after police returned to the house in a second attempt to find him. When they found him he was “fearful.”
“His body language said he was absolutely afraid of what was happening,” Southerland said. Chief Greg Porter praised the persistence of officers involved in the case.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” Porter said. “We’re still investigating.”
The details are just the latest twist in a bizarre case that has captured international attention.
Police arrested the boy’s father, Gregory Jean, 37, and his 42-year-old wife, Samantha Joy Davis, and charged them with false imprisonment and child cruelty. Three juveniles at the home were also arrested.
A judge denied bond for the couple on Sunday after learning that Davis was on probation for a 2004 incident in which she cut her biological son’s tongue with scissors for allegedly talking back to her. Jean had a fugitive of justice case on his records. Jean said that case was dismissed because they had the wrong person.
The 13-year-old was found after he texted his whereabouts to his mother in Florida. He had been missing for four years. He was on the cellphone with his mother when the police found him. The
Neighbors were shocked to learn the boy had been held against his will. They reported seeing him in the yard frequently and never noticed anything out of the ordinary in the six months the family had been in the community.
The boy went missing shortly after visiting his father in 2010. Jean is a U.S. citizen from Haiti. The boy’s mother, who is not from the United States and is apparently unfamiliar with U.S. protocols regarding missing children, called child services about the situation instead of the police.
Although the boy was reunited with his mother in a tearful reunion over the weekend, he’ll remain in state custody.
Jean and Davis are due in court Dec. 9.
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