The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office believes it has identified the man who picked up a Greenwood 13-year-old girl who was missing for nearly two months.
Valentina LaCava turned herself into police in Chicago over the weekend and Johnson County Sheriff’s Office detectives immediately traveled to the area to bring her home, according to a news release from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
She was interviewed on Monday morning and now investigators believe they know the man who picked her up from her residence about two months ago, the news release said.
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The sheriff’s office is still investigating, Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess said.
LaCava, who had lived in Indianapolis, was reported missing about 1 a.m. June 21 from the 5500 block of Watson Road, Greenwood. She was last seen getting into a car at a nearby intersection the night before.
The sheriff’s office has dedicated extensive resources to finding her this summer, concentrating on who she was with and trying to track her. Other state and federal agencies were assisting in the search.
About 9:30 p.m. June 20, a Greenwood man reported seeing a young girl matching her description get into an old, dirty, two-door Honda Civic, with damage to its front bumper, at the intersection of Watson Road and Possum Hollow Road, the same neighborhood the girl was reported missing from.
“This is a parent’s worst nightmare and we need to let the public know that we are doing everything we can do in Johnson County to ensure these types of incidents are not occurring,” Burgess said in the news release.
