GILROY
– A 16-year-old Gilroy High School girl remains missing after
she and two female classmates wandered off from a Friday afternoon
field trip in downtown Modesto.
A GHS teacher supervising the field trip, Jose Hernandez, filed
a missing person’s report with police around midnight Friday. As of
Monday morning, neither Tamika Jones nor the men she wandered off
with, apparently at will, have been located.
GILROY – A 16-year-old Gilroy High School girl remains missing after she and two female classmates wandered off from a Friday afternoon field trip in downtown Modesto.
A GHS teacher supervising the field trip, Jose Hernandez, filed a missing person’s report with police around midnight Friday. As of Monday morning, neither Tamika Jones nor the men she wandered off with, apparently at will, have been located.
Jones’ mother, Cynthia Carter, said the two other girls returned to their Gilroy homes Saturday, after being dropped off on the side of a Merced road by the men they left with the day before. According to Carter, the girls said Jones was going to be dropped off in a separate vehicle Saturday.
“They’re OK, but they were still scared,” Carter said of the two girls.
Based on her conversation with one of the girls, Carter believes the three students voluntarily wandered off with the men, but were later held against their will. Carter said the men were African-American and in their 20s or early 30s. She did not know how many men were involved.
“I have no reason to believe Tamika ran away,” an emotional Carter said Monday.
Hernandez, the GHS teacher who filed the missing person’s report, said Jones grew up in the Modesto area. Hernandez was helping supervise the Modesto field trip where GHS students participated in a lip-synch competition.
Christy Beffa, of the Modesto police missing person’s unit, said the case likely will not qualify for an AMBER Alert since the girls left willingly. Beffa said she is working with the Gilroy Police Department to locate the two girls who returned. Police are hoping to find out more about the men the girls left with and the location the girls were taken to.
Jones is 5-feet-5 inches tall and weighs roughly 135 pounds. She has a chipped front left tooth and is described as shy.
Those with any information leading to Jones’ whereabouts should call the Modesto police at (209) 572-9500.
