Published: June 12, 2007 07:02 pm      

Oklahoma teen on class trip in hot water over kidnapping hoax

An Oklahoma teenager traveling across the Cumberland Plateau on a class field trip is in hot water today because of a kidnapping hoax over a cell phone that left authorities in four Tennessee counties scrambling to find a "victim."

The kidnap hoax was apparently the 14-year-old girl's idea of having fun while traveling with her class on a tour bus on I-40 on a return from Washington, D.C. The fun ended when police officers tracked the calls to the tour bus which was stopped outside Nashville and the young girl was taken into custody.

It all began Sunday night, June 2, when the Cumberland County E-911 Center received a call from a young female who identified herself as a four-year-old girl from Knoxville who had been kidnapped from a babysitter in Knoxville. The girl went on to say she was hunkered down in the back seat of the kidnapper's vehicle, using a cell phone to call for help.

Crossville and Cumberland County police officers immediately responded as did troopers of the Tennessee Highway Patrol who were working I-40 in and around Cumberland County. A search failed to locate the purported victim.

A short time later Putnam County authorities were alerted that a female claiming to be six years old had been kidnapped by a Hispanic male and was in a vehicle traveling west on I-40. Putnam deputies and troopers joined and intensified the search.

As time went on the girl embellished and changed parts of her story. At one point she told authorities she was taken in Knoxville by a white male who was driving a white Nissan Maxima with one working headlight.

Authorities this time were consulting with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to decide whether to issue an Amber Alert. At the same time, Cumberland County authorities were in contact with the cellular phone company who provided information about who the phone was assigned to.

This led investigators to contact the phone subscriber in Oklahoma who turned out to be the 14-year-old's parents. The parents, in turn, contacted the bus company, who notified the driver of the bus.

The driver stopped the bus in Wilson County and state troopers and other officers boarded the bus, located the teen, and took her into custody. Reportedly the girl could face charges in four Tennessee counties.

Putnam County Sheriff David Andrews told the Herald-Citizen, "We always take things like this call seriously. It's unfortunate that we had to spend so much time and effort on something that was a prank. But the good thing is that nobody was kidnapped and nobody got hurt."