Missing Katy girl is found in Mexico
A 13-year-old Katy girl who ran away last week was found safe Sunday in Mexico, according to the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office.
Mexican authorities and the FBI pitched in to track down Ashlee Hattermann during the two-day hunt that led officials to Laredo and eventually to Mexico City.
The teen disappeared Friday morning after her mother dropped her off at Thornton Middle School. She left campus and went to a church, where she persuaded a good Samaritan to buy her a bus ticket.
The teen hopped on a Greyhound headed south to Laredo on Friday afternoon.
Although Ashlee left school early in the day, the Hattermanns didn’t find out their daughter was missing until late Friday afternoon, when the school called to say she’d attended only one class that day.
Ashlee’s parents feared she had headed south to find a man she met on the inter- net.
“There’s been an ongoing case since May of last school year when she was talking online with a sexual predator,” said her mother, Tiffany Hattermann.
After finding out about the messages last spring, Ashlee’s parents took away her phone and internet access. But now they think she may have managed to stay in contact with the man using a secret second phone.
Finally, around 11 p.m. Sunday, authorities in Mexico spotted the teen and alerted the sheriff’s office before picking her up to meet her father, who was already in Mexico City.