Deputies, along with the GBI, recently opened an investigation after two girls from metro Atlanta were possibly sex trafficking victims in Morgan County, the Rockdale Newton Citizen reported.
The Morgan sheriff’s office said a 15-year-old Conyers girl and a 12-year-old Social Circle girl were found hiding in a Rutledge park about 2:45 a.m. July 19, the newspaper reported. The Conyers teenager was reported missing from her home nearly three weeks earlier.
The two girls were found hiding behind a tree, the sheriff’s office told the Citizen. The responding deputy asked if they were OK, and they responded that they were all right.
However, the deputy also spotted 22-year-old Quintavious Davon Benton of Rutledge hiding behind the tree, the newspaper reported. He ended up being arrested on a count of enticing a minor for indecent purposes, the sheriff’s office said.
The two children were returned to their families, the newspaper reported.
Investigators followed up with the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office about the Conyers juvenile and found out that the child’s mother believed her daughter had been seduced by a man, leading to her disappearance.
According to records obtained by the Citizen, the teen called her mother July 19 and told her that she had been abandoned by the man in Rutledge. She said she wanted to come home, which is what prompted authorities to check the park.
The child’s mother told authorities that she believed the man had been sex trafficking her daughter, the newspaper reported. The juveniles told investigators that Benton was not the man who abandoned them in the park.
Benton is being held in the Morgan County jail. His mug shot has not been released.
Morgan and Rockdale deputies, along with GBI agents, continue to investigate the incident and search for the man who took and later abandoned the girls. AJC.com has reached out to the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office, the lead agency on the case, for more information.
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