Girls aged 16 and 17 ‘FAKED their own abduction from flea market and triggered Amber Alert while checked in to motel with two men’
- Marina Nelson, 17, and Devany Betancourt, 16, were reported missing by a family friend
- The pair vanished from a flea market on Sunday night in Seagoville, Texas
- At 11.30pm, Devany called her mother and claimed she was being held against her will
- An Amber Alert was issued and the girls’ friends and family campaigned online to find them
- Cops traced Devany’s call to a hotel room in Dallas but she was gone when they arrived
- They then traced Jose Penaloza-Estrada who had rented the room
- He told them the girls were by then in a different hotel room in Plano
- The girls were found safe and well; they have not been charged but Estrada has been charged with harboring a runaway
Two girls aged 16 and 17 faked their own abduction from a flea market which triggered an Amber Alert when the pair were actually in a hotel room with two men, according to police.
Marina Nelson, 17, and Devany Betancourt, 16, were reported missing by a family friend after they vanished from the flea market in Seagoville, Texas, at around 8pm.
At 11.30pm, Devany called her mother and told them they were being held against their will.
Marina Nelson, 17, and Devany Bevancourt, 16, were reported missing by a family friend after they vanished from the flea market in Seagoville, Texas, at around 8pm
A frantic search ensued; the police department issued an Amber Alert and the girls’ families and friends made tearful appeals to their ‘kidnappers’ on social media.
On Monday, the girls were found safe in Plano, around 40 miles away.
On Wednesday, Seagoville Chief of Police Ray Calverley revealed to KETK – a local NBC affiliate – that the girls made it all up.
Cops traced the call that one of the girls made to a hotel room in Dallas and went there first.
They had gone, but they were able to look at surveillance camera footage of the pair with two men.
The girls vanished from the flea market in Seagoville, where they had been with a family friend
Police issued an Amber Alert for the teens. They were scared they’d been taken against their will
Devany’s mother sobbed in a Facebook video (left) begging her daughter’s ‘captors’ to bring her back. Right, Seagoville Chief of Police Ray Calverley saying he’d hate for his own daughters to go missing. He has since confirmed the girls made it up
Jose Penaloza-Estrada, 20, has been charged with harboring a runaway. The other man has not been named
They did not look to be in any kind of distress or danger.
The cops then traced the call to Jose Penaloza-Estrada, 20.
He told them he had rented another hotel room in Plano, and that’s where the girls were found.
It’s unclear if authorities are planning to bring charges against either of the girls.
Penaloza-Estraa has been charged with harboring a runaway.
The other man involved has not been charged.
The girls’ motive is also unclear.
Their relatives, who pleaded for their safe return on social media, have not commented on the apparently staged kidnapping.
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