Skip to footer

Abducted Georgia teen Ayvani Hope Perez reunited with family

Ayvani Hope Perez, the 14-year-old girl abducted from her home near Atlanta early Tuesday morning, has been found, and two suspects are in custody.

|
John Bazemore/AP
FBI assistant special agent in charge Ricky Maxwell speaks during a news conference Wednesday in Jonesboro, Ga., where it was announced that kidnap victim Ayvani Hope Perez has been found.
|
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children/AP
This is an undated photo of Ayvani Hope Perez.

A 14-year-old girl abducted from her home near Atlanta early Tuesday morning has been found safe and apparently in good health, law enforcement officials reported Wednesday. Two suspects are in custody.

The girl, Ayvani Hope Perez, was taken following what appears to have been a random home invasion in which the suspects demanded jewelry and cash. When none was found, the girl’s relatives reportedly told authorities, the suspects demanded a $10,000 – then $100,000 – ransom for Ayvani’s release.

Local police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI were involved in the search, which ended when her captors apparently abandoned the ransom plan and dropped off Ayvani in the community of Conyers, Ga., about 25 miles from her home in Ellenwood.

"She's in good health, she's being evaluated as we speak," Clayton County Police Chief Gregory Porter said at a press conference Wednesday. “This is a good day. This is a good day for the Perez family, but more important for Ayvani.”

The suspects, who were apprehended without incident, have been identified as Wildrego Jackson of Atlanta, and Juan Alberto Contreras-Rodriguez, a Mexican national who is being held on immigration-related charges.
 
Citing state Department of Corrections records, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Jackson was released from state prison in 2007 after serving time for several drug-related convictions. On July 19, he was released from the Fulton County Jail after being arrested on numerous charges, including aggravated stalking and theft-by-receiving.

Law enforcement authorities – some 150 of whom were involved in the search – are piecing together details about the events surrounding the abduction.

Ayvani's mother reportedly had her daughter and her 15-year-old son hiding inside the home when the break-in occurred. But the intruders were able to find them, along with the family dog, which they shot and killed, police said in a statement.

At Wednesday’s press conference, FBI Special Agent Rick Maxwell said motive for the incident has not yet been determined – specifically, whether or not the victims were known to the suspects.

“We have not determined the relationship between these individuals at this time," Special Agent Maxwell told reporters.

It’s unclear at this point how or where the suspects were found.

Maxwell also said the two suspects in custody are not the two depicted in sketches released Tuesday of the men who abducted the girl.

“We believe those two suspects in the drawings are still at large,” Maxwell said Wednesday afternoon. “Anyone with any information relating to those two suspects, we still ask that they call the same tip line that we provided before.” 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Abducted Georgia teen Ayvani Hope Perez reunited with family
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/0918/Abducted-Georgia-teen-Ayvani-Hope-Perez-reunited-with-family
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe