CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. — A 16-year-old Carroll County girl has been missing for nearly a month, with new details in the case emerging in a sheriff's office incident report.
Kaylee Jones was reported missing on June 15, and last week the Bartow County Sheriff's Office said she may be in Cartersville. Since then, authorities have continued to try to locate her.
At that time the Bartow Sheriff's Office said investigators were "working diligently around the clock on this case" and reviewing data from her electronic devices, including who she may have been in contact with before going missing.
The sheriff's office in Carroll County said at the time she first went missing that she "could possibly be with someone she met through certain apps online."
The incident report details how her mother, Brenda Jones, was concerned about her online messages with "strange boys and men" and took her cell phone the night before Kaylee went missing.
The mother told investigators she went to bed around 8 p.m. and that Kaylee was gone when she woke up. She was concerned Kaylee might have run off, something the mother said she did once before but "came back within a couple of hours."
The mother said then Kaylee would not have had her phone with her, and that she was home schooled and did not have any obvious place to go where she might have been staying with friends.
“I am constantly on the phone all day long or on the computer trying to find more resources," Brenda said. “I miss my sidekick. I called her my sidekick because she was always with me. She’s so silly. When she laughed, it was an uncontrollable laugh. This was quite a bit. I miss our trail rides on our horses, because it was Kaylee and I time.”
The sheriff's office has said previously she also has family in the Tampa and Brooksville, Florida areas. She may have a dark blue backpack with a horse on the front of it and the word "Mazi" or "Kaylee" on it.
Kaylee will be in need of medical care, the sheriff's office has said.
“She’s not here, and it’s the emptiness," Daniel Jones, Kaylee's dad, said. "You never know it until it’s gone. It’s been absolutely terrible. Day by day, we wonder where she’s at.”
The family is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to Kaylee's discovery. They said holding out hope they'll find Kaylee is how they prevent themselves from thinking of the worst-case scenario.
"We continue to receive tips and possible sightings and none have been substantiated as of this time," authorities said last week.
Anyone with information about Kaylee's whereabouts is asked to contact investigator Courtney Short at 770-830-5916 or by email at cshort@carrollsheriff.com.
