FBI Agents have joined the search forAliahna Lemmon, a 9-year-old girl who went missing on Christmas Eve.
Lemmon was last seen on Friday night at the trailer park in Indiana where she lived. According to ABC, the trailer park where Lemmon lives is a “haven for sex offenders.”
FBI agents started searching the area on Monday morning. According to the Houston Chronicle, the FBI searched the mobile home park and a nearby storage facility for Lemmon as a hundred people gathered across the street for a candlelit vigil.
David Story, Aliahna’s step-grandfather, said:
“Children don’t just walk away during Christmastime.”
More than 100 local emergency workers went on an extensive search for Aliahna on Saturday in Fort Wayne. According to ABC, the search effort has been scaled back by local officials but the addition of FBI agents provides some hope in the case of Aliahna Lemmon.
According to ABC, the trailer park where Lemmon lives is home to 15 registered sex offenders.
Elizabeth Watkins, a mother who lives in the trailer park, said:
“It’s scary. I don’t know how a parent could leave their child alone.
To make things even scarier for Lemmon’s family, the little girl has hearing and vision problems. Lemmon’s mother, Tarah Souders, said that the girl also suffers from ADD, emotional problems, and has a history of sleepwalking.
Mike Plumadore, a neighbor, was taking care of Aliahna and her two sisters because Souders was sick. Plumadore said that when he woke up in the morning Aliahan was gone. Her sisters, both six, said that she left with her mother but when Pludamore and Souders talked later that night, they realized that Aliahna was gone.
Plumadore is not considered a suspect at this point.
