GILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. – From her little yellow home amid the cornfields of Tuscola County, Katherine Lester linked to the wider world through MySpace.com and then launched herself into the Mideast and international headlines.
Katherine, who is a little less than two weeks from turning 17, was last seen around home on Monday — before she got into a cab with enough clothes for two weeks, a birth certificate and a passport authorities say she snookered her mom into getting for her.
On Thursday night, FBI agents found the Akron-Fairgrove High School honor roll student at the airport in Amman, Jordan – a long, long way from the house on the gravel road next to Buddy’s Small Engine Repair.
When agents found her, the 16-year-old was on her way to meet a 25-year-old man in Jericho, on the West Bank, authorities said. Or so that’s what the man claimed to be when they met about three months ago via her page on MySpace, a hugely popular Internet social site.
“It’s just a mess. I don’t even know where she is right now,” her mother, Shawn Lester, said Friday afternoon.
She appeared distraught by her child’s globetrotting escapade.
“I’ve been told not to say anything,” she said. “Give us a few days to sort it out.”
According to the FBI, Katherine was heading home Friday, but her route and arrival time were not being made public. Special agent Bob Beeckman said only that “She’s on her way back now.”
Reese, the town nearest the Lester home, is a community of 1,500 residents, and the skyline is dominated by the Star of the West Milling Co. grain elevator.
Handyman Jim Prueter, who paused from watering the lawn in front of the IGA supermarket Friday afternoon, said the incident was a rare public splash for the town east of Saginaw.
“You very seldom hear anything about Reese,” said Prueter, 76. “We don’t have any crime here to speak of. Heck, we only have two full-time police officers.”
Katherine’s preparations began a few months ago, said Tuscola Undersheriff Jim Jashinske. She convinced her mom she needed a passport so she could accompany a friend’s family on a Canadian vacation when school closed for the summer.
On Sunday, Lester drove her daughter about 15 miles to the Bay City bus station to meet the friend’s family for the Canadian trip, but they never arrived. Lester then called the family – and learned there was no such trip planned.
Mother and daughter then returned home and, as the sheriff’s press release phrased it, “Katherine then became very upset and refused to tell her mother what her original plans were.”
Lester went to work Monday leaving Katherine asleep, Jashinske said. After her mother was gone, Katherine called a cab and took off.
After two days of fruitless calls to locate her – Katherine had a cell phone but didn’t pick up, authorities said – her parents filed a missing persons report.
The girl’s stepmother then found her page on MySpace and learned she’d been swapping messages with the man from Jericho.
Teaming up with the FBI, investigators discovered Katherine Lester had caught a flight Wednesday from JFK in New York to Amman, Jordan. Initial efforts to find the girl at the Amman airport were unsuccessful.
Beeckman said agents in Tel Aviv and Amman were alerted and found the girl Thursday night at the Amman airport.
“Agents traced her in the airport and convinced her to come home,” Beeckman said Friday. “She’s on her way back.”
Authorities suspect the man from Jericho helped pay for the trip.
The teenager’s computer is now being examined as part of the investigation, but Jashinske said there is no evidence of any crime so far.
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MySpace.com, owned by News Corp., is a social networking site that claims about 70 million members who can post journal entries and , photos and link up with users around the world.
While it is enormously popular with teenagers and young adults, authorities are concerned that predators can stalk unwary kids on the site, or that youngsters assuming more mature identities can find themselves in precarious situations.
In May, police intercepted a 13-year-old from Macomb County – she claimed to be 18 in her online profile – after she took off with a 25-year-old man from Indiana she’d met through MySpace.
Katherine Lester’s MySpace profile says she’s from Small Town, Michigan, and was accessible only to persons on her friends list.
A spokeswoman for MySpace said company policy would not allow her to comment on specific users.
“Thank God she was returned safely,” her father, Terry Lester told the Associated Press on Friday. “She’s a good girl. Never had a problem with her.”
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AP-NY-06-09-06 2138EDT
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