Katy parents desperate to locate teen who has been missing a week
Kristin Daniel took note as the clock pushed toward 10 p.m. Monday.
“It’s a week, in just a few hours,” she said, meaning a week since her daughter disappeared.
On the evening of June 19, Daniel’s 15-year-old daughter, Kassy, sprinted away from their home on Doves Gate Court, in the Katy subdivision of Cinco Ranch.
The teenager, whom Daniel and her husband had adopted, suffered from the effects of earlychildhood trauma, Daniel said. She often went on daytime walks when she grew upset. But that evening, Daniel didn’t want her venturing out in the dark.
“Bad things happen overnight,” Daniel said. “I knew nothing good would come from it.”
Daniel insisted on walking with her daughter, following her outside barefoot. But Kassy ran. She had her cellphone and perhaps $40. The mother couldn’t keep up. Kassy had apparently turned off the feature on her phone that usually allowed her parents to see where she was. She didn’t respond to text messages from her mom. She ignored friends and other family who reached out at the mother’s request.
A family member went to look for Kassy — to no avail. She was
wearing knee-high, laceup black Converses and dark clothes, nearly identical to what is depicted in her missing person’s poster. The black shirt she wore, from a concert by The Chainsmokers, had a red “X” on the back.
Her mother, emotionally drained but still searching, hoped she had not become a target.
Kristin Daniel and her husband had adopted Kassy through a private arrangement at age 3. They knew she would suffer the impacts of past trauma — including what the mother described as physical and emotional neglect. But they did not know to what degree.
The couple paid attention to her development. The mother traced the steps. They noticed when Kassy first developed sensory reactions, such as being scared by putting on socks because of how the seam felt, or growing agitated by the tag in the back of her shirt.
Kassy developed behavioral issues later, with difficulty making and keeping friends, Daniel said. She felt stress in crowded classrooms and hallways.
She began going to counselors in first grade. At the recommendation of experts, her parents pulled her out of private school in April.
The parents, meanwhile, had made efforts to learn about how best to care for their daughter. They practiced the notion of “time in,” the mother said, rather than “time out,” meaning they would try to help her settle down by showing her calm behavior and working through the issue with her.
But on Monday one week ago none of that was enough.
Kassy had learned that day that a friend could no longer go with her to the movies, and it upset her, Daniel said. She views the world in extremes, her mother said, and believed she would never see her friend again. Her emotion escalated.
Kassy had run away before, in May. She asked for water from a stranger, who then took her to go get something to drink. She called home.
This time, her mother worries she approached the wrong stranger. Her phone has not been active since the afternoon after she ran.
“My gut feeling is that somebody probably has her,” the mother said.
In runaway cases, the risk of human trafficking arises as a concern, said Jamey Caruthers, senior staff attorney at Children at Risk. A history of abuse and neglect are also common among trafficking victims.
A Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office search remains ongoing, spokesman Bob Haenel said. They have asked that anyone in the public with information contact them at 281-3414665.
Texas EquuSearch, an organization that offers aid in search efforts, has been contacted about the case but is not involved in the search, volunteer David White said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children issued a poster for Kassy, adding her to a list of 372 cases reported in the state, according to an online list. An Amber Alert has not been issued.
Taking on part of the search effort herself, Kristin Daniel spent Monday evening printing flyers. She posted them throughout the neighborhood Tuesday.
Kassy is 5-foot-3 and weighs around 115 pounds, according to the poster. She has brown hair and brown eyes.
“I’m hoping very soon that we’re going to have a larger search effort,” Daniel said. “We just want everybody to keep looking for her.”