Sex Assault Charges Filed in Missing Texas Teen Case
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Obtained by ABC News(HOUSTON) — A Texas man accused of kidnapping a 14-year-old runaway has been charged with sexual assault of a minor, though police still have no information about the man or the girl’s current whereabouts.
Haylie White, 14, was last seen by her family willingly leaving their Houston home on Tuesday with Jacob Daniel West, 33, a neighbor who was known to her family, police told ABC News.
Her mother tried desperately to keep Haylie from running off with West, even tugging on her leg as she got into the older man’s pickup truck.
“I tried to pull her leg to get her out of the truck, but she wouldn’t get out,” her mother, Jan Nixon, told ABC News affiliate KTRK on Wednesday. “She just kind of laughed at me.”
West has no previous criminal history, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, but police “have determined the pair had an inappropriate sexual relationship.”
“To be honest with you, she was involved with him behind my back. I just neglected to see it. Now that I see it, she needs help. Both of them need help,” said Haylie’s father, Jimmy White.
In the time since the couple ran away, Haylie has deleted her Facebook profile and stopped answering her cellphone, her mother said.
A nationwide Amber Alert has been issued, and police in five bordering states are searching for West’s 2005 silver GMC Envoy.
Haylie is five feet tall and weighs 120 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a tie-dyed shirt and blue jeans. West is described as six-foot-two, and weighs 220 pounds.
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