Facebook Leads to Missing Girl, Arrests

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By Kyle Midura

Story Published: Jun 10, 2010 at 6:07 PM MST

Story Updated: Jun 11, 2010 at 5:48 AM MST

BILLINGS - A missing Missoula-area girl is back with her family after Facebook helped steer officers in the right direction.

It's a parent's worst fear, "it was hell, it was horrible," said Monica Ray. She and her husband reported their daughter Kelsey missing on May 30th.

Kelsey, 16, ran away from home with two 18-year-old boys she met online, both of whom had criminal records. "I talked to the police in Washington, and was told very frankly that they don't look for runaways because they have so many other cases that are higher priority," she said.

Monica knew her chances of seeing her daughter again would get worse the longer the clock ticked. So she turned to the very tool that took her daughter away: social networking. "So many people responded," she said, "in two days, 70,000 people had visited the flyer online."

Posts offered everything from tips to well-wishes. Suspects gave law enforcement valuable info through their own on-line presence.

"Social media was definitely a big factor in this case," said Rod Ostermiller, "hopefully we can take the lessons we learned here and apply them to future cases."

Ostermiller is the deputy chief of the U.S. Marshals for the District of Montana, and helped bring Kelsey home. "The key to success... is interagency cooperation," he said, "if we have good communication and continue to work together I think we can do a lot of good things."

Washington's most wanted featured the suspects, and state and federal agents worked the case, but it was a suspect's guilt-stricken family member who called in the crucial tip. The facebook page was too much to bear.

"After a short period of time they were successful in locating the two fugitives that had taken the girl," said Ostermiller.

Kelsey turned herself in, and a mother and father have their daughter back.

Marshals arrested suspects Kegan Salter and Jay Higgins in Kirkland, Washington. The Superior Montana residents will be charged with conspiracy for custodial interference.

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