Sex Offender Corey L. Witty has to Role in missing Teen, Erin Nembhard (Picture)
Erin Nembhard, 15-year-old, was whispering into the telephone around 10:30 p.m. Friday. Less than an hour later, the teen was gone. Her family hasn’t seen her since.
Both Nembhard and authorities fear that the girl fell into a trap set by Internet predators. Police said a convicted sex offender was the last person to admit seeing her in his Opa-locka home in Miami-Dade County, more than 100 miles away from the Nembhards’ home on Aurora Drive.
Investigators said Erin Nembhard crawled out of her bedroom window with a suitcase filled with clothes and a bookbag late Friday and drove off with a man whom she had met in an Internet chat room. The man, Eduardo Narvaez, 21, first drove her to his Miami residence before taking her to the sex offender’s home early Saturday, Capt. Scott Bartal said.
The sex offender, identified as Corey L. Witty, 35, admitted to police that Nembhard spent nearly two days with him, but that she left unharmed around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, investigators said. Detectives found her belongings inside Witty’s residence. He told police he did not know where she went.
Another example of the danders parents face when their children are on-line in chat rooms.
Witty was arrested Sunday on unrelated charges of failing to register as a sex offender in Miami-Dade County. He was being held in the county jail on $5,000 bail, jail officials said.
Witty had served time for sexual battery and lewd and lascivious assault convictions dating back to 1999, according to records. The victim was younger than 16.
Anyone with information on Nembhard’s disappearance is asked to call the Port St. Lucie Police Department at (772) 871-5001 or Treasure Coast Crimestoppers at (800) 273-TIPS (8477).