Lost and Found: The Rest of the Story — Part 3

(This is Part 3 of a three-part story describing the disappearance and rescue of 12-year-old Emily Hollis — including how God intervened through an attentive believer and the unexpected difficulties the Hollis family faced. Click this link for Part 1 and this link for Part 2).


BEHIND THE SCENES

While prayers were going up on a near non-stop basis from Day 1 as Grandma Vonna and so many others prayed for Emily’s safe return, Kiel and Autumn, Emily’s parents, were pushed to the breaking point. Sleep was a luxury experienced only a few hours each night as desperation, fear, and growing frustration kept their minds filled and emotions on a razor’s edge.

Kiel shares that while the community was incredibly supportive, with people present to support the family from early morning to late at night, the people who seemingly could help the most (law agencies) were hamstrung by laws and guidelines that greatly hindered finding missing children, especially runaway children.

Kiel says that while he turned in tip after tip and updates to local police received from volunteers in the Jacksonville area — strangers who gave up untold amounts of time to search for Emily — the couple slowly came to the conclusion that no one was actively working their case. Kiel and Autumn were the ones who thoroughly searched Autumn’s room, found a list of passwords, and were able to access her apps to discover what was going on between her and this boy and how he had manipulated her.

The list of frustrations the Hollises experienced only grew. For example, the Hollises learned that the officer finally assigned to Emily’s case more than two days after her disappearance did not have any experience in finding missing children and they also discovered that there was little to no communication (that was desperately needed) between the Beaufort Police Department and the Jacksonville Police Department. In fact, Amy Pfau spoke to four different officers while trying to report seeing the 4x4 pick-up Emily was found in, and not one of those officers were even aware that there was a missing child in the Jacksonville area.

Emily told her parents that she ended up in what Kiel described as a drug house in Jacksonville. He says she recalled it being an abandoned building with lots of rats and older guys doing crack and ice (meth), which they “encouraged” her to use. She and her “boyfriend” still ran errands for the men, but Emily later said one of the older men sexually assaulted her.

Vonna says Emily later shared that she had been yelled at and was told she couldn’t look at anyone, sit next to anyone, talk to anyone, couldn’t cry, and she didn’t have an opinion.

And Kiel admits, after making the four-hour drive to Jacksonville to bring Emily home, they barely recognized her — dirty, high, and with a look about her that was unsettling. At the hospital, they discovered Emily (who has an athletic build) had lost at least 10 pounds in the four days, dropping from roughly 110 pounds to 97 pounds.

And although it was far too little far too late, the Hollises recently received a letter from the Department of Social Services confirming what they — but evidently not the police — believed early on: Emily had been groomed for trafficking.

LIFE CHANGING

As one would expect, Emily will never be the same person. She’s in ongoing counseling, attending AA and NA meetings, and doing her best to integrate back into life.

And as pastor Taylor says, “She still needs our prayers.”

However, Emily wasn’t the only one impacted. Her younger brother, Cy, who’s 9, lived through those fear-filled days. His struggles dealing with that experience have more recently become evident — he too is in counseling.

Although negatives abound, God has made himself evident. Kiel and Autumn have a deeper relationship with God than ever before, and it has motivated them to see changes in laws to help make finding missing children easier. And Vonna has decided to move from her widows ministry to working with trafficking ministries.

“There’s this meme online, the backend of an 18-wheeler open and empty, with ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ written on the side, as if prayers were useless, meaningless,” Kiel says, admitting at times he used to lean that way. “But now I fully understand the thoughts and prayers of people . . . just knowing they were praying kept hope alive — it means more to me now that it ever has!”

And the Pfau family has seen their faith in God’s divine guidance greatly increased and that impact even extends to Austin . . . come to learn, Austin and Cy, Emily’s younger brother, were in the same class at Coosa Elementary school (before Austin transferred to Bridges) in Beaufort. When the connection was realized, Austin’s response was, “Mom, I’m so glad God helped us find her (Emily) for him!”

LESSONS LEARNED

As a result of their traumatic ordeal the Hollises gained insights regarding vital steps to take when a child goes missing. They say immediately reporting the child missing to the police is vital, but also strongly caution against use of the word “runaway.” A USA Today article confirms that police may not even look for a “runaway” child. And even the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services admits that, “Labeling a child as a ‘runaway’ can lead to delayed or insufficient responses while framing the child as ‘missing’ encourages a quicker, more thorough, and trauma-informed response.” Also, calls to national hotlines (such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) help get the word out more efficiently.

However, as the Hollises later learned, taking to social media with pictures, videos, and posts that can and do go viral, is key, and if possible, hiring a vetted private investigator can be of immense help.

The Hollises also recommend the Amber Advocate website, which offers helpful resources including a booklet on what to do when your child is missing and another directed to the siblings of missing children.

Kiel and Autumn now believe, the more people aware and looking — including parents — for a missing child, the sooner, the better.

EMILY’S LAW

Inspired by their nightmarish experience — and learning that many other families across the U.S. have had similar experiences — Autumn has decided to work to change laws.

What’s wrong with current laws?

According to Kiel, for many people the shock of a 16-year-old boy being a potential “mule” to supply young girls to traffickers is easier to understand from a trafficker’s perspective: 16-year-olds are minors, but can still legally drive. The FBI doesn’t typically get involved in minors-only cases, and minors aren’t typically charged with most crimes, such as crossing state lines with another minor, kidnapping, trafficking, and other laws those who are 18-and-older could face extended prison time for . . . and the police — if grooming isn’t taken as a serious consideration — may dismiss cases like this as two juveniles sneaking off together.

Statistics on missing children are also difficult to pinpoint, as some sites claim national and local figures are extremely under reported, yet the Office of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Program website stated nearly 360,000 reports of missing persons involving youth were entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in 2022. By the end of 2022, roughly 30,000 of the missing children cases remained active.

Also, as the Hollises were told that Emily's disappearance did not fully meet the criteria for an Amber Alert to be issued, one never was, even though Kiel says the mother and uncle of the boy were willing to testify to police (and did so to a city councilman) that Emily was in imminent danger. And, as Kiel points out, a 12-year-old can’t legally “consent” to going anywhere with anyone without a parent’s permission.

With all this as a backdrop, Autumn has taken action. She has created two petitions to get laws and verbiage changed in South Carolina to clear up confusion and arbitrary decisions and place the safety of children first. And she hopes that her recommendations catch the attention of other states’ or even federal officials.

First she has created a petition for what she calls Emily’s Law.

“Currently it is all up to the local law enforcement in each county to make the decision to charge a person with kidnapping,” Autumn says. “Emily’s Law will allow parents to press charges on a juvenile, 16- or 17-year-olds, once they cross state lines with their child (age 13-and-under) without parental consent. This law will take the choice of filing charges, or not, away from law enforcement.”

Autumn says once two conditions are met — the child is reported to police as missing or a runaway and the other juvenile is confirmed as 16 or 17 years old — the law would also void the “runaway” label and bump it up to “missing and endangered,” which increases its priority and opens the door for other government agencies to get involved.

Her second petition effort is to get the word “runaway” totally removed from reporting vocabulary and replaced with “missing” or “endangered” as not only does the word “runaway” lead to a missing child automatically becoming a low-to-no priority for police, it also leads to assumptions by the general public.

“The word ‘runaway’ has a stigma about it,” Autumn explains. “Before this, I didn’t understand the word — I just thought either the kids were bad or the parents were bad, so the kids ran away, never even considering how a child could be deceived and lured into ‘running away.’”

CHURCHES — PART OF THE SOLUTION

“Every parent’s biggest nightmare is to have their kid missing or abducted,” Bartel says, “and with social media and the speed that AI (artificial intelligence) is advancing, it has become easy to deceive and exploit kids.”

Yet, Bartel recognizes that few parents prepare themselves for having a missing or abducted child. And, as Emily’s story demonstrates, even good kids from good homes are not immune to deception — especially at vulnerable times in their lives. But Bartel believes the church is a vital part of the solution.

“At F.R.E.E. International our team has trained tens of thousands in every sector of society — federal, state, and local law enforcement; social services; and first responders,” Bartel says. “And then there’s the churches. We’ve trained at every point of the exploitation process, not just on the finding, but on the grooming process all the way to the restoration process. We believe the church should be in the forefront of protecting, empowering, and being present for vulnerable children, families, and communities.”

And as one might expect, the F.R.E.E. International team of trainers is stocked with highly skilled people who have decades of frontline experience in this space (law enforcement, search and rescue, therapists, veteran missionaries, social workers, etc.), with the trainings based on the ministry’s long history of case work involving the missing and exploited — not just secondhand information pulled from the internet.

“We are always doing trainings at every level of law enforcement, community, and church,” Bartel states.

And even if a church never has a family from its congregation experience the trauma of a missing/endangered child — nearly every community will have multiple families that walk through that fire and they won’t be ready for it — no one is . . ., but the church can be. For more information about F.R.E.E. International trainings, contact Bartel through the website or at [email protected].

Image: Due to privacy concerns, a stock photo has been used for this article.