Teenager 'talking to older men on Facebook' before going missing in mystery

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Alicia
Alicia's friends revealed to police she had been talking to older men on Facebook (Image: CaryPolice/Facebook)

The parents of a missing teen have said they believe she was “talking to men on Facebook” before her unexplained disappearance.

Alicia Anderson, 16, was last seen by her parents on Friday, January 19, at 4.32pm, with the final sighting caught on the family’s Ring doorbell camera in Cary, North Carolina, as 12-mile drive west of Raleigh. Her parents, Michael Sullivan, 45, and Ashley Anderson-Sullivan, 40, have shared their “gut-wrenching” pain as they pray for her return every day.

In the doorbell footage Alicia is wearing plaid red and black pyjama bottoms, a hoodie and a pink backpack. Her parents revealed that Alicia’s friends told police that she had been speaking to older men on Facebook in the weeks before she disappeared.

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Teenager 'talking to older men on Facebook' before going missing in mystery eiqehiqhqiuzinvShe was last seen on her family's Ring doorbell at 4.32pm (CaryPolice/Facebook)

Speaking to the U.S. Sun, Michael and Ashley explained that everything seemed normal before she went missing. "She laid on my bed and was talking about how stressful her exams were. She wanted to know if she could stay the night at [her friend's house]. I said yes. Everything was absolutely normal,” Ashley said.

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Alicia hadn’t had a phone since November so her parents didn’t think she had been contacting anyone outside of school - until her friends revealed the truth to police after her disappearance. She had previously had boyfriends, but had never told her parents about men on Facebook.

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Teenager 'talking to older men on Facebook' before going missing in mysteryThe 16-year-old was wearing red pyjama pants with a pink rucksack (CaryPolice/Facebook)


The youngest of three children - with siblings Alexis, 24 and Damien, 21 - Alicia has left her family devastated with her mysterious disappearance. "It's just gut-wrenching. Hard to eat, hard to sleep, hard to work. Your mind just goes in really bad places," Ashley said. Michael added that it’s “every parents worst fear”.

"You hear about this kind of stuff all the time and you don't think it's gonna happen. Nothing can describe the kind of pain that this has caused us,” Michael added.

Police have shared photos of Alicia, who has dark brown hair and eyes, is Japanese-Caucasian, 5 foot 3 inches tall, and often wears rosary beads. If you have any information on Alicia’s whereabouts, police ask that you please immediately phone Cary Crimestoppers at (919) 460-4636 or the Cary Police Department at (919) 469-4012. The Mirror has reached out to police for further information.

Teenager 'talking to older men on Facebook' before going missing in mysteryAlicia's parents said it's "Hard to eat, hard to sleep, hard to work." (CaryPolice/Facebook)
Teenager 'talking to older men on Facebook' before going missing in mysteryAlicia often wears rosary beads around her neck (CaryPolice/Facebook)

Meanwhile, officers in Mount Vernon, Washington, are continuing to search for Ella Celeste Jones, 14, believed to have met a man in his twenties who she met online. Jones left the home wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, multi-coloured plaid pyjama pants and black Nike Air Forces.

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Ella previously wrote a cryptic message to her mother, alluding to a relationship with an older man. Ella's friends had previously flagged she was speaking to an adult man on chatroom site Omegle, which matches you with "random people" to talk to.

Alex Croft

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