The teenage girl whose family claimed she was a victim of sex trafficking may have gone willingly with her so-called abductors, according to new information first reported by Daily Mail and confirmed to Crime Online by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department source.
“We were told by [Sarah Dunsey’s] mother that she was a victim of sex trafficking,” said Danny Cordero of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “We did not find any evidence to substantiate that claim.”
READ also: Sarah Dunsey can’t remember what happened to her, says stepdad
According to the Daily Mail, the LVMPD was not notified about Sarah Dunsey’s missing person status until January 30, two weeks after she was believed to have been last seen there.
Dunsey’s mother Amie Ellis was featured in a emotional, artful video appealing for her daughter’s return that went viral earlier this month.
“Our daughter Sarah Dunsey was abducted from Las Vegas, Nevada; she’s being held against her will and Sarah is a victim of sex trafficking,” Sarah’s mother says in the video.
According to the Daily Mail, Sarah was found in Venice, California, on Friday, and was reunited with her family over the weekend after a brief hospital stay in Los Angeles.
But the circumstances of her alleged kidnapping have come into question.
Michael Rodriguez of the LVMPD told the Daily Mail that there was no evidence to support a claim that she was kidnapped in Las Vegas.
There was no kidnap. She was not kidnapped in Las Vegas and as far as we are concerned, there is no evidence that any crime has occurred.
Just because someone claims they were kidnapped, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. We did not find that she was [kidnapped], although it still could be true.
Captain Curtis Hooley of the Logan Police Department in Utah told the Daily Mail that Sarah was meant to return to Logan, Utah, where her father lived, on January 3, after visiting with her mother in St. George, Utah.
“It is unclear why Sarah’s parents did not discuss her whereabouts between January 3 and January 16,” Hooley told Daily Mail.
Captain Hooley said that he spoke to a friend of Sarah’s who saw her leaving the casino at the MGM Grand, not appearing to be in distress:
“She left with a couple of other males. She did not appear to be struggling. She didn’t seem unwilling at all.”
Sarah Dunsey was reported missing on January 16, and it does not appear that her mother was involved in the filing of the report.
From the Daily Mail:
Dailymail.com has also learned that a missing persons report was filed to police the day after the teenager’s alleged kidnapping not by her mother in St. George, as it was believed, but in Logan, where Sarah lives with her father Michael, 40, and his wife Terri, 39.
In an earlier interview with Daily Mail, Sarah’s stepfather pushed back against skeptics who suggested she may have left on her own volition.
“People have said things like, ‘she was a runaway, she meant to leave [Las Vegas]’. She didn’t. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Todd Ellis said.
This is a developing story. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
Photo: Family handout
