Missing Teen Located in Adult Jail After Lying About Age

A missing teenage girl from the Pittsburgh area was located in an adult jail after lying to law enforcement about her age, a local prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Pittsburgh police posted about the missing 13-year-old girl on August 6. Police said at the time that the girl was last seen on August 2 on the North Side of the city.

The teen was later charged with retail theft for allegedly stealing from a Dollar General store in Beaver Falls with a 25-year-old woman on August 17, Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible said on Tuesday. Beaver Falls is a little under an hour’s drive northwest of Pittsburgh.

After she was caught, the girl gave police a fake name, Mae Wilson, and a false birthdate that indicated that she was 18 years old, Bible said. The teen ended up spending two weeks in an adult jail.

The girl did tell police on multiple occasions that she was a juvenile from the Pittsburgh area but lied about being homeless, according to Bible.

Beaver Falls police contacted Child and Youth Services in Beaver County and Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located. They tried to find information about the girl, but since she gave a fake name, there was no record of her, Bible said.

The girl was reunited with her parents after someone from the jail she was in noticed her from the missing person report.

“It was either a jail employee or an inmate who saw the photo of this juvenile as a missing person and recognized her as being housed in the Beaver County jail,” Bible said. “Immediately, the deputy warden isolated the juvenile to keep her by herself. They contacted her parents, and her parents came and picked her up.”

The girl was picked up from jail on Tuesday morning and will face retail theft and resisting arrest charges in juvenile court, Bible said. She may also face a false identification charge.

Bible said the jail and police did nothing wrong and said an incident like this actually happens a lot.

“The officers did everything right and this happens quite frequently where they get a fake name or birthday from people who have warrants in different counties or different states,” Bible said. “They can’t just let her go because they can’t figure out who she is. I mean she did commit a crime.”

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.