Diabetic teen found safe
(CNS): Updated – Police said Friday that the diabetic teenager who had been missing since Friday, 1 March had been found safe and well that afternoon in George Town. Fifteen-year-old Ashley McLaughlin left her home in Bodden Town around 7.00am on Friday to go to school at the Clifton Hunter campus, where she is a student. She did not return home after school and made no contact with members of her family. Ashley has been reported missing on a number of previous occasions and is known to frequent the George Town area. Officers said she was seen last Saturday evening with two other young females around 5.00p near the Emslie Memorial Church on the George Town waterfront.
Police were on the lookout for the teen for more than a week as a spokesperson for the RCIPS said it was not known when she was missing if Ashley was in possession of insulin to appropriately medicate her diabetes. In the past when she has gone missing, once located, she was taken to hospital to receive treatment.
Following her safe return the police extended their thanks to the media and the wider public for their assistance in finding Ashley.
Category: Local News
Accordingly to the article once located she is taken to the hospital to receive treatment. Then what? Apparently, when she is ready, she is off for another episode. If this keeps happening over and over, the public may become less willing to help and soon it may end with serious consequences. I say, deal with the young lady and get to the bottom of this. No one seems to have any idea what police work is done after she is found to deal with the problem. Was anyone arrested for assisting her? Someone must have been assisting her.
I remember the days when children actually respected and feared their parents. I was one of them….. for had this been me, I would've gotten an old fashioned Jamaican ass whoopin from my mom when I returned home.
CNS – Please post this comment cuz those same ass whoopins would help eliminate a lot of problems we have with youngsters today.
Maybe your ass whoopins are the problem.
Arrested for what????. I don't think assisting a missing person is an offence? She had not committed a crime.
Is everything that goes wayward in this island the fault of the police? or is it about time that we are reminded of personal responsibility. In my opinion this is a major thing that too many of the youngsters on this island do not seem to have.
I'm pretty sure that it would be for social workers to address the aftermath with the young lady, the RCIPS is not responsible for sorting this out.
I don't get the lol's. There is nothing funny about a missing child. I'm glad that she was found. Maybe Social Services should help with some kind of support group for the father. It is very difficult with a girl as she might need another woman to talk to about things.
We need to criminalise this sort of behaviour.
You want to make it a crime for a 15 year old girl to run away from home? Ridiculous.
Yes I do. Too many silly little madams acting out.
Criminalizing psychological/behavioural/emotional problems sounds like a great idea. This should work out well, at almost no cost.
Absolutely, they should tally up just how many police and emergency service hours were used in the search for this teen and make her do community service at an hourly wage to 'repay' the community and government for wasting time, resources and efforts that could have been otherwise directed.
The passive participants should be held to a higher standard of conduct in situations like this. In the real world, these enablers are prosecuted as co-conspirators, accessories, or for obstructing justice. It seems to happen all- too frequently in Cayman. People see stuff all the time and fail to be helpful to society. More importantly, in the case of concealing criminal acts, not reporting a crime is considered a crime itself in nearly every justice system around the world. Wish it were treated as so here.
SomeReasons why kids runaway found on the web: Family problems: Many youth run away, and in turn become homeless, due to problems in the home, including physical and sexual abuse, mental health disorders of a family member, substance abuse and addiction of a family member, and parental neglect. In some cases, youth are asked to leave the home because the family is unable to provide for their specific mental health or disability needs. Still some youth are pushed out of their homes because their parents cannot afford to care for them.
Transitions from foster care and other public systems. Youth who have been involved in the foster care system are more likely to become homeless at an earlier age and remain homeless for a longer period of time. Youth aging out of the foster care system often have little or no income support and limited housing options and are at higher risk to end up on the streets. Youth that live in residential or institutional facilities often become homeless upon discharge. In addition, very few homeless youth are able to seek housing in emergency shelters due to the lack of shelter beds for young people and shelter admission policies.
Economic problems. Some youth become homeless when their families fall into difficult financial situations resulting from lack of affordable housing, difficulty obtaining or maintaining a job, or lack of medical insurance or other benefits. These youth become homeless with their families, but later can find themselves separated from them and/or living on the streets alone, often due to shelter or child welfare policies.[i]
Wow thanks, I thought they just did it to have fun
And sometimes they run away because the parents won't let them do what they want i:e see a person they see as not good company, going out late on a school night, have to be in at a certain time at the weekends……
This is good parenting!
I work for LIME…tracking phones over network isnt as easy and as accurate as people think..also, yes smart phonea have a GPS but they are independent to the device and can only be tracked by apps like blackberry protect and icloud which the consumer sets these accounts up for personal use
Knowledge is the key
Bollocks!
It done in the US by simple triangulation based on signal strength and is used by several agencies.
AT&T even have a family package where you can see where your family members are at any given time.
It just software theat ICTA should make you have
Triangulation requires (guess what) three masts. How many do you think there are on this island?. Not many. So even with triangulation she could've been narrowed down to an area of the size of West Bay. The triangulation will tell you which mast is receiving the strongest signal, but this is not going to give you an accurate location, so if she is inside a building you have two hopes of finding her. Bob Hope and No Hope.
Grand Cayman is flat and with few tall buildings, so there is no necessity for having more telecoms masts.
Lime is still a crappy customer service company. Crappy.
I there is an older man involved with this, why are they never charged???
So she was found…lucky this time around But again, my concern is she is ONLY 15 and this isn't the first time this has happened. Something is wrong here and her parents cannot deal with it. Again, you parents let your kids do what they want with no supervision, no reprucussions and then when something happens its "oh no my poor baby". This child was gone for a week, had everyone worried, wasted the police time, well I am sure they didn't do much, but nevertheless…enforce her to do some community service like sit and read with the elderly, sit and read for terminally ill people including children. Not let her get away with it and then she will just do it again, for remember she was `14 before 15 and I am sure she did it then to!!!
yea i heard a 32 yr old
My question is how concern is the police in this matter most teenagers have cell phone why havent they gone to her provider and have them trace her phone. Today is one week since this kid havent return to her home and nothen if this child is doing this for attention hopefully she is found safe some evaluation needs to be done to see what is the problem thats causing this .
Reading the comments below, it appears some of you guys are not taking this situation seriously enough. We have had in the course of two years a number of people gone missing. The last girl that went missing being of very young age, her body was found in the bush in the East End area. I think at this time police should organize search teams because anything is possible. This girl is diabetic and her life could be in grave danger, so I think we need to start sending out the alarm and taking this missing girl incident seriously.
The people she spent her time with know where she is. If the family doesn't know who she was spending her time with, that is part of the problem.
This seems to happen a lot with the masse of dramatic teenagers we have on our island. The only difference with this situation is that Ashley is diabetic and is therefore in danger. We have had so many situations where these young kids run away from home for a few days to a best friend's house, or a boyfriend's house or what have you, simply as a way to get back at their parents.
There is no way that someone hasn't seen, heard, or witnessed something to do with this young girl at some point in the last 6 days.
I'm sure that like every other teenager on island she must have a smart phone of some kind. Have people checked her social networks? Have the police or her parents contacted LIME or Digicel to track the GPS in her phone? Seems to me like these are considerations that could help find her.
If she is found and is healthy and not harmed and indeed didrun away; then I think she should be severely punished by the law for wasting emergency service resources and time. Here's hoping she's doing ok and is just hiding out somewhere, surely that is better than the alternative of something having happened to her.
kids dont run away for six days because of hormones! they runaway for a afternoon or night maybe, someelse is going on here. if this girl is dependent on meds she is already in big trouble( shock, coma etc).
we need real cops here.
please can we hire florida pd here ??? those ladies on the tv show would be great.
that is not a funny matter 🙁
The matter might not be funny, but suggesting that we bring in the participants on the "Women of Broward County" television show is absolutely hilarious.
Ugently her family and the cops needs to speak or go to her best friend (s) house (s) and find out who her boyfriend is, if theydo not know.
Ashley sweet heart, if you or any of Ashley's friends reading this she might need your help. So say something to an adult or someone of authority because SHE NEEDS TO TAKE HER MEDS.
I pray she reach home safe.
After watching the news it seemed her dad said he cooked, cleaned tried his best. Theres fewer single fathers but they are out there. Maybe some kind of support network for these single dads could be made available. Its not always easy for a man to admit hes struggling, nor for a women. The women seem to have people to talk to. Im sure its available for the single dads also but maybe it could be made clear where these men can go for help…
Lets hope that this is the case of another dramatic teenage run-away to a friends house for a couple days than the alternative of her being harmed or hurt in anyway. Come home, little dove, I'm sure your family miss you.
She has gone missing in the past? Seems like one very irresponsible teenager if she cannot be bothered to even let her parents know where she is. Is this how young people behave towards their parents and those who love and care for them?
Gone missing in the past yes but has anyone considered why she may be running away? I think its time for a social worker to get on this case and really get to the bottom of her reasons for not wanting to be at home. XXXXX
She is a minor, and I agree. Social services would be all over this anywhere else.
We have all heard this story before, just with different characters. So, the ending will be not a suprise.
I prefer that to be the case over something bad happening to her.
We will never know though, as in the past once the parents find out what these "missing girls" were doing, it is quickly buried. All we will hear is that she has beed "found" safely. Which is good enough for me.
I pray for her soon return!
Like I said above, "found safe".
Glad to hear it.
Someone has seen this young lady and/or knows where she is. Speak up before it is too late. If she is not receiving insulin, she is in serious danger.
What do you mean "In the past when she has gone missing"?
@ 17:06 – Because this is not the first time she's gone walking about! Someting is seriously wrong in our socity. And make no bones about that…..the facts are there. She is Missing & that's the facts!
Ok, the post is ging to be a little Controversial, this isn't the first time the girl has gone missing or gone walk about? Ever heard of the boy that cried wolf? It appears to me that the police may not put as many staff on this case.. Not saying that they don't care but!!!
Now of course I hope she is found safe and heathy.
She was seen in GT that evening, surely if we have a time and ruff location we can look at the CTV cameras or ask the merchants in the area if they have cameras. norrow doing who the girls were with her and question them.
To be honest as this is not the first time leaving home, is there a problem at home? maybe social services should be called in, Oh forogot they are to busy giving money to those who are taking advantage of our system.