Ashlee Hattermann: Missing 13-Year-Old Girl Thought To Be Traveling To Mexico To Meet Man Is Found Safe
Ashlee Hattermann, a 13-year-old Katy, Texas, girl who went missing Friday, has been found safe in Mexico, say authorities. Her family believes she crossed the border to meet with an older man she had met on social media.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office took to Twitter Sunday night, writing that Ashlee had been located with the help and cooperation of Mexican authorities, according to WFAA 8 Dallas. The sheriff’s office also thanked the San Antonio Laredo FBI office for the assistance it provided in the search for the teenager.
Authorities say that Ashlee was found in Mexico City.
Prior to law enforcement locating Ashlee, her father, Keith Hatterman, spoke to KHOU 11, saying he believed his daughter had been communicating with a 29-year-old male online using social media, phone calls, and covert messaging apps. He said he had found a note in the girl’s room saying she called the man “Daddy” and herself “Baby Girl.” Keith added that the note had one sentence written over and over on it, which said, “Daddy owns my body and my soul.”
Keith and his wife Tiffany stated that last May they discovered Ashlee had been “exchanging graphic sexual images and messages” with the man using her phone, KHOU 11 reports. They confiscated her phone but on Saturday, the couple found out Ashlee had been talking to someone on an iPhone while in her school’s library.
BREAKING: Ashlee Hattermann, 13, has been found safe in Mexico with cooperation from authorities there. Thank you @FBISanAntonio and all who helped in this search. #hounews
— HCSOTexas (@HCSOTexas) December 4, 2017
Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Thomas Gilliland said Ashlee left school grounds sometime Friday and walked to a local church where she persuaded a woman to buy her a bus ticket, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The woman spoke with KHOU 11, saying Ashlee told her she was 18 and had been in the Katy area visiting her boyfriend. The teenager said her parents lived in Laredo and she was trying to get back home, so the woman bought Ashlee a bus ticket and some lunch.
The woman told KHOU 11 she was “devastated” and “so upset… for this little girl… and for her family.”
Surveillance footage from the Katy bus station showed Ashlee getting ready to board a bus headed south, the Houston Chronicle reports.
An expert in human sex trafficking told KHOU 11 the behavior of the man communicating with Ashlee indicated classic signs of grooming young girls to prepare them to enter the sex trade.
