STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. (PIX11) — A teenage girl from Queens who had been missing for six months turned up at a Staten Island police precinct early Friday morning, telling cops she escaped sex traffickers who had raped and drugged her.
“She was being held with two other girls,” the 15-year-old’s mother told PIX11 News Friday. “She’s at the hospital on Staten Island.”
PIX11 News had profiled the story of the girl from Forest Hills twice, as part of regular reports on The Missing.
A law enforcement source confirmed she turned up at the 121st Precinct Friday morning.
The girl was 14 years old when she disappeared on Oct. 13.
Her father was driving throughout the five boroughs, traveling as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, to search for the teen.
“They were holding her first in Brooklyn,” the mother said of two men who allegedly kidnapped her daughter, “and then they passed her on to someone else… The only thing I know is that it was in New Jersey.”
The mother later told PIX11 News some men had the daughter in a car traveling from New Jersey to Staten Island around midnight Thursday, when they “threw her out of the car and threatened her.”
The law enforcement source confirmed that the teen, who only turned 15 this week, went to the 121st Precinct in the early hours of Friday morning. Detectives from the NYPD’s Human Trafficking Unit were expected to interview the girl.
The mother said her daughter and the two other girls had been sexually assaulted and drugged by the men who were holding them.
“She said they had them in separate rooms and had the doors locked,” the mother said, quoting her daughter. “… she don’t know the girls, because they always had them separated.”
The mom said her daughter and the other victims were “locked up, drugged up, and had ‘men coming in and out.'”
Somehow, the teen found a way out. The girl reportedly was running on the streets of Staten Island and asked a woman to direct her to a precinct.
The mother said her daughter told the woman, “‘I’ve been kidnapped and raped and these people are trying to hurt me.'”
The mom said she spoke to her daughter on FaceTime, after the girl was taken to a Staten Island hospital.
“She lost a lot of weight,” the mother said. “I can tell on her face that she got scars where they dragged her and did stuff to her.”
The teen’s case received national attention after PIX11 News reported her story. PIX11 News was contacted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who asked them to profile the girl’s case.
The girl’s mother had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer when her daughter disappeared. The teen had gone missing for brief periods before.
Her father said he used his daughter’s phone and social media contacts to try and trace her movements, saying she met some bad people while playing games on a popular basketball app.