Sascha Wil­son

Thir­teen-year-old Mari­ah Richards was re­leased un­harmed and is back in the arms of her par­ents.

This was con­firmed by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob dur­ing the TTPS me­dia brief­ing on Fri­day morn­ing.

He did not dis­close what hap­pened when Mari­ah left her home on Mon­day morn­ing sup­pos­ed­ly to buy bread at a near­by par­lour, but he did ap­peal to par­ents to mon­i­tor their chil­dren’s in­ter­ac­tion on so­cial me­dia.

Just Thurs­day, Mari­ah’s fa­ther De­von Richards had ap­pealed to the peo­ple who had his daugh­ter not to harm her and re­turn her home or drop her off some­where.

Twen­ty four hours lat­er Mari­ah was dropped off in Bel­mont.

Richards left his daugh­ter home prepar­ing for on­line school and dropped his wife to at work in Princes Town on Mon­day morn­ing. When he re­turned to their home at Mon­key Town, New Grant, she was not there. He went to the par­lour and gro­cery but no one saw her.

He then made a re­port at the Table­land Po­lice Sta­tion.

Some­time lat­er Mari­ah’s moth­er got two phone calls from a blocked num­ber. The male caller told her they had Mari­ah, but they picked up the wrong per­son and would ei­ther drop her home lat­er that day or the fol­low­ing day.

Sev­er­al search­es were car­ried out by fam­i­ly and friends.

Dur­ing the TTPS press brief­ing yes­ter­day, Ja­cob said he just got word that Mari­ah was found and was with the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit in Bel­mont.

He said, “I just want to make this plea to par­ents and to all young per­sons in re­la­tion to the use of the so­cial me­dia, the use of Face­book, and in­ter­act­ing, mak­ing arrange­ments with per­sons who we do not know. Par­ents need to look in to see what their chil­dren are on the com­put­er. It is cre­at­ing se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ties. The Child Pro­tec­tion Unit will in­di­cate how many in­stances we have where young per­sons are be­ing ad­vised and co­erced in dif­fer­ent ways which end up in un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tions. So again be very, very care­ful with the use of so­cial me­dia.”

Ja­cob added that there were in­stances where adults were al­so be­ing lured in­to dif­fer­ent ar­eas through so­cial me­dia and robbed.

He said, “We had sev­er­al sit­u­a­tions like that and they are go­ing in­to places which are high risk, and some per­sons in some in­stances even have lost their lives. So again we just want to put out that warn­ing in re­la­tion to the use of the me­dia.”

Thank­ful that Mari­ah was safe, Ja­cob said the po­lice are con­duct­ing in­quiries in­to the in­ci­dent. When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed her fa­ther he was grate­ful that his daugh­ter was found.

He be­lieves that the peo­ple who with his daugh­ter had heard his ap­peal and re­leased his daugh­ter with­out hurt­ing her.

He was thank­ful for all the as­sis­tance and sup­port he re­ceived af­ter his daugh­ter went miss­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.