The 14-year-old Atlanta teen kidnapped from her home early Tuesday morning is back home with her family, and law enforcement officials are holding two men in connection with the abduction, but there’s a strange twist to this story after all.
Information released Wednesday afternoon revealed a connection between the teenager’s mother and one of the suspects. They were previously arrested on drug charges together, authorities said. For nearly 36 hours, state, local and federal officials searched for Ayvani Hope Perez, while family members tried to raise a $10,000 ransom her captors demanded. Tuesday’s early morning abduction, by two men who broke into the family’s Ellenwood home through a back door and demanded money and jewelry, touched off a massive search that ended around noon Wednesday.
“This is a good day for the (Perez) family, and more importantly for Ayvani,” Clayton County Police Chief Gregory Porter told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “She’s been reunited with her family. She’s in good health.” FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said Ayvani was found “at a residence” in Conyers. Officials from the Clayton County Police Department, the FBI, the GBI the Clayton County District Attorney’s Office and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations were tight-lipped about how they combined to find the teen and what they did to track the two men in custody.
Full story at BMS
