Crime

Police find Georgia girl safe two weeks after she went missing with 21-year-old man

This is a breaking news story and will be updated as needed.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated as needed.

A 14-year-old Putnam County girl who had been traveling for two weeks with a 21-year-old man was found safe on Sunday afternoon.

The girl, Gracie Lynn-Madison McCumbers, left her home the night of July 25 with Caleb Peter Green.

She was located by police in Vienna in Dooly County, south of Perry, about 12:30 p.m., after she caught a ride there from a small-town motel in northern Florida where she and Green had been staying in recent days, Putnam Sheriff Howard Sills told The Telegraph.

“She apparently grew tired of her fugitive lifestyle and her fugitive boyfriend,” the sheriff said.

Green was jailed on a felony interference-with-custody charge after a sheriff’s deputy in Nassau County, Florida, north of Jacksonville was asked to see if Green was still at the motel where McCumbers told police the pair had been staying.

Green was arrested about an hour after McCumbers was found, taken into custody in the town of Hilliard, not far south of the Florida-Georgia line from Folkston, just east of the Okefenokee Swamp.

Sills said the two had traveled to the Savannah area soon after leaving Eatonton two weeks ago and ditched a Volvo SUV that belonged to Green.

On Sunday, after hitching a ride back to Middle Georgia, the girl told police that she and Green had traveled to Florida by taxi, the sheriff said.

“I anticipate Mr. Green may face additional charges,” Sills said.

The sheriff added that at least one other person could face charges in the matter.

Joe Kovac Jr.
The Telegraph
Joe Kovac Jr. writes about local news and features for The Telegraph, with an eye for human-interest stories. Joe is a Warner Robins native and graduate of Warner Robins High. He joined the Telegraph in 1991 after graduating from the University of Georgia. As a Pulliam Fellowship recipient in 1991, Joe worked for the Indianapolis News. His stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and Atlanta Magazine. He has been a Livingston Award finalist and won numerous Georgia Press Association and Georgia Associated Press awards.
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