Amber Graham: 14-year-old missing in Georgia/Found at boyfriend's house

Police in the small Georgia town of Aragon are stepping up the search for Amber Graham, a 14-year-old ninth grader who vanished eight days ago.

U.S. Marshals and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation will be joining what has been a low-key search for the last seven days as concern for the girl’s safety mounts, Aragon Police Captain Dwayne Alexander said.

According to the girl's godmother, Ruthann Battles Dabbs, Amber's mother last saw her in her bedroom at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday Feb. 20. The girl said she would be ready for church in the morning. Amber's mother looked into the room again at 2 a.m. and discovered that the girl was gone and her bedroom window was open. The mother immediately called the police.

SLIDESHOW: Where's Amber?

Dabbs described Amber as quiet and sensible and said, "She certainly wasn't wild or troubled," adding that the girl's disappearance "was not what she was like." The girl is a petite 5-foot-0 and 90-pounds, with brown eyes and blond hair.

Alexander said Amber, a high school freshman, had "some history of running away," and because of that the search didn’t go into high gear until later in the week. But now, he said, "we are looking at some subjects right now for withholding information and we have conducted several searches.”


He said the last phone call Amber made was to her 16-year-old boyfriend on Sunday morning, “four hours after she was reported missing. They talked for 10 minutes.”

He said a consensual search of the boy's house turned up marijuana in the attic, and since then the boy and his mother have stopped cooperating. "We believe he knows more than he is telling us," Alexander said.

He said police were able to track Amber's cell phone, but "the phone cut off Tuesday and there have been no sightings, no contact since then.”

Ruthann Dabbs disputes the claim that Amber was a runaway or "any sort of problem child, as that claim makes her seem." She Amber left home once, but she left a letter telling her parents where she would be. She said the girl's parents are desperate to hear from their daughter or from anyone who has seen her.

Alexander said efforts to issue an "Amber alert" for the girl were turned down because they couldn’t show that she was specifically endangered.

He said that the particulars of her case were put on the National Center for the Missing and Exploited Children Web site last Friday. Ernie Allen, president of the center, said it appeared the information has not yet been posted and they waiting for a consent form from the mother. "We expect it to be up shortly," he said.

Dabbs said Amber's family has been putting up posters of the missing girl around town all week, but they are being torn down. She also said that police had searched the house of her 15-year-old former boyfriend, and "since then both the boy and his mother had hired lawyers." She said Amber's friends have tried to get them to talk, but they have failed.

She said "The whole town has gone hush-hush," adding that there are rumors flying about that have everyone on edge. "My husband says my involvement is going to get my house blown up," she said.

Dabbs criticized police for failing to act more quickly and said the longer Amber is missing, the more likely it becomes that she has been harmed.

"If they had just searched the area where her phone was last monitored, we would be better off today," she said.
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What's up with this? This is really strange about the boyfriend and his mother...Were there two boyfriends, one 15 and one 16? It called the 15 year old her former boyfriend...It is very strange if there are TWO boys and mothers that refuse to talk to LE!

Tip Leads Police to Missing Georgia Girl
Thursday, March 04, 2010
By Ed Barnes
Ruthann Battles Dabbs

A 14-year-old Georgia girl who had been missing for more than a week was found Wednesday night when police raided a house in a community not far from her home.

Amber Graham of Aragon, Ga., was found in a house in the nearby town of Rockmart.

Police, using a search warrant based on a tip, arrested the occupants of the home: Stacie Fennell and her 15-year-old son, who was identified as the girl's boyfriend.

Authorities said Amber was unharmed.

Fennell and the boy, who was not named because he is a juvenile, have been charged with obstruction of justice, hindering an investigation and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to Aragon Police Captain Dwayne Alexander. The pair are currently being held, pending a court hearing.

SLIDESHOW: Where's Amber?

Alexander said Amber originally went along with a scheme to run away to the Fennell home, but she seemed relieved when police raided the home. According to Alexander, police learned that the boy had a hidden compartment in his room that allowed Amber to avoid a consensual search of the house last week.


He said a tipster told police on Wednesday about the hideaway in the home, which opened to an attic room. Police then used that information to obtain the search warrant.

Police acted so swiftly that Amber was actually found in the boy’s bedroom, before she could be hidden.

Amber is currently in the custody of the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice, Alexander said. He said there wasn’t an argument or fight that precipitated her running away from her home. “The family seems to be a loving family. There doesn’t seem to be any problems there,” Alexander said.

Also taken away from Fennell's home were the family's 18 cats and three dogs.

Ruthann Dabbs, Amber’s godmother, said the family was elated that their ordeal was over, and they were waiting for her to come home.

“It is a happy ending,” she said

Amber was last seen on Feb. 20 when her mother put her to bed. Later that night, her mother checked her room and found that she was missing and her bedroom window was open. Police originally treated the case as a runaway, but they became concerned for Amber's safety when she failed to return home and her cell phone could no longer be monitored. Over the next few days they organized several searches, but they continued to focus on her boyfriend’s house.

The boyfriend and the mother originally cooperated and allowed police to search the house. In that search police found marijuana and charged the boy. After that the family refused to cooperate further.

Friends and family say there are still questions that have to be answered, and they speculated that Amber went over to the house willingly but was forced to stay once the police became involved. Police refused to comment on that possibility.

What's up with this mother of the boyfriend hiding this 14-year-old girl!?