Katherine R. Lester, 16, Runaway to Israel to meet MySpace.com man
This MySpace.com story may top them all. Katherine R. Lester is a straight-A honor
student, left home and flew to the Middle East to meet a man she met on-line. She originally lied to her parents to obtain a passport in order to meet a 25-year-old from Jericho.
Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff’s officials said. She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, FBI agent Robert Beeckman said. (AP via Yahoo News)
Shawn Lester told The Saginaw News that her daughter has “never given me a day’s trouble. … I guess that statement can no longer be said.
PARENTS … CHECK WHAT YOUR CHILDREN ARE DOING ON-LINE. ESPECIALLY IF THEY HAVE A MYSPACE ACCOUNT. Luckily, Katherine R. Lester, was persuaded in Jordan to return home to the United States and not go on further to meet this man in the West Back.
DETROIT — A 16-year-old top student from Michigan tricked her
parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. She was on her way home Friday. (Fox News)
Katherine Lester had obviously planned this meeting well in advance to have first obtained a passport necessary for the plane flight to the Middle East. It appears her plan went as follows:
Jashinske said while the girl’s parents were working, she left home with her passport and enough clothing for two weeks.
“She was supposedly picked up by a yellow cab according to her brother,” Jashinske said. “Her mother called Katherine’s cell phone for the next two days, but Katherine did not return her calls.”
According to authorities, she got on a plane to visit a man she met three months ago. His MySpace account says he is a 25-year-old from Jericho, Tuscola County Undersheriff James Jashinske said in a press release. (Huron Daily)
The number of these cases is becoming alarmingly to common. MySpace.com has been the usual suspect far too often as well. Teenagers and parents have got to understand the dangers of the internet. Socializing network sites are playgrounds for sexual predators. The fact that the internet deals with the “world wide web” only increases the exposure of teenagers to those that would exploit them.
Lester met the man on MySpace.com, a social networking hub owned by News Corp. with more 72 million members that lets users post photos, Web logs and journals. Its features and popularity with teenagers have raised concerns with authorities in the United States. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.
“This is almost a stereotypical example of how kids become compliant victims. Internet predators don’t abduct their victims; they persuade them. And as is apparently the case in this story, it’s not uncommon for the child to know that she’s dealing with an adult,” said CBS News technology analyst Larry Magid.
“Aside from the distance involved, this is a pretty typical case. The most vulnerable kids are teenage girls who willingly get together with adult men they meet on the Internet,” Magid added (CBS News)