Parents want all sorts of things for their children, but ultimately, there's nothing more important than their safety. Simply put, everything after that is secondary. While no parent is ever completely free of that nagging concern, they'll find they're more likely to relax when they know that their kids are responsible and well-behaved.
A good child is easier to trust, and that may have seemed like the case for 17-year-old Florida resident Caitlyn Frisina. Yet, when a strange turn of events unfolded, her family couldn't have been more terrified by the surprising move she made...
Growing up in the northern Florida town of Lake City, 17-year-old Caitlyn Frisina seemed to be living an ordinary life. She was an attentive student, and her parents, Scarlet and Ward, were known in the community. They owned a local business management consultancy called Flatwoods Forestry.
Caitlyn took her studies seriously at Fort White High School and she was a devout Christian. She loved playing soccer on her school's team, and she was even a member of Florida's Elite Soccer Academy.
As a member of the cross country and track teams, she consistently qualified for regional championships and she participated in a number of different extracurricular activities. Even so, soccer was still her favorite activity.
Caitlyn wasn't the only member of her family to feel this way; Ward coached her school's girls soccer team. At the same time, Caitlyn herself helped serve as referee for the Columbia Youth Soccer Association.
Caityln Morgan Frisina / Facebook
As busy as she was, Caitlyn still found time to help out around the family business, and her parents loved her agreeable behavior and compassionate personality. That's why it was so shocking that, on November 26, 2017, she disappeared...
Ward Anthony Frisina / Facebook
Somehow, even though Caitlyn's parents hadn't seen her that morning, there was no evidence that she had been abducted. In fact, police had reason to believe that the teenage girl simply left her family's home voluntarily at some point the night before.
Scarlett Parnell Frisina / Facebook
The single set of footprints outside their home seemed to point to that as well. Right away, people began questioning why Caitlyn would do such a thing. It wasn't long, however, before they had a clue...
Caitlyn Morgan Frisina / Facebook
It turned out that Caitlyn had stopped in St. Mary's, Georgia, over 100 miles from her own home, to withdraw $200 at an ATM. Police caught a glimpse of her on closed circuit television (CCTV) as she continued heading north to the Carolinas.
Visit St. Marys, Georgia
At that point, it was determined that she wasn't alone. The man she was with was identified as 27-year-old Rian Rodriguez, a soccer coach at Caitlyn's high school. He was considered a close friend of her family. And it got worse...
Columbia County Sheriffs Office
Even before Caitlyn's unusual disappearance, as early as August 2017, authorities had become suspicious that Rian and Caitlyn were engaged in an inappropriate relationship—though they'd concluded the two were just friends. Were they wrong?
"As far as we [knew], he was just a friend," Scarlet revealed to the Lake City Reporter in November 2017. Caitlyn's friends, on the other hand, thought otherwise. They even tipped off the police that there might have been a romantic side to the relationship.
Rian Rodriguez / Facebook
Her parents wanted nothing more than for her to return. "We love her very much," said Scarlet. "And it doesn’t matter what has happened or where she is. All we're concerned with is her safety."
ABC News / YouTube
As the search continued, upsetting evidence was discovered on Caitlyn's phone—which she'd abandoned before she fled her home—in the form of a series of messages of a sexual nature to Rian. Police began searching for Rian's 2001 Mercury Sable.
Inside Edition / YouTube
Finally, on the afternoon of December 1, there was a breakthrough: police officer Todd Grant spotted a vehicle matching the description of Rian's car all the way in Salina, New York, and even went so far as to follow the driver into a parking lot and confront him.
Jason Lawrence / Wikimedia Commons
The driver was Rian, and Caitlyn, who seemed unharmed, was right there with him. Rian was arrested immediately, and his plan was revealed. He claimed he'd accepted a job in Salina, and he wanted to raise enough money to acquire fake papers so he could smuggle Caitlyn with him to Canada.
Iduke / Wikimedia Commons
Rian appeared to be under the impression that Caitlyn was as eager to adopt a new life with him as much as he was, but Caitlyn's friends were skeptical. "She didn’t know how to get out of it," one reportedly told police. "And if she did he would mess up her life."
Caitlyn Morgan Frisina / Facebook
The next day, Caitlyn and her parents were reunited in New York. Her aunt shared pictures of the event online, and it seemed like a touching moment, but there was a lot of work left to do.
Caitlyn's family was thrilled and relieved to have her back, but it wasn't over for the police. "She's a 17-year-old high school student, who I feel was influenced by someone who was in control, who was in a supervisory role, and that shouldn't be," one officer explained.
Rian, for his part, didn't likely have a happy ending; he faced charges of interference with child custody, and authorities even considered charging him with kidnapping in addition.
Inside Edition / YouTube
If they could prove there was an inappropriate relationship between Caitlyn and Rian, he would be in even more trouble. Caitlyn was under 18 and he was over 23, and that age difference violated the state's close-in-age exemptions.
Caitlyn's safe now, and that matters more than everything else. However young women are still being taken advantage of at an alarming rate. And what's even worse, things don't always resolve the way they did for Caitlyn.
On March 24, 1998, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley and her family boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise ship called Rhapsody of the Seas headed to the Antilles islands in the Caribbean. The family couldn't wait to enjoy the warm weather and beautiful scenery.
The cruise ship was packed with other tourists eager to enjoy their vacations, too. The Bradleys—Amy; her father, Ron; mother, Iva; and brother, Brad—boarded in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with their first stop in Aruba. Then, their ship departed for the island of Curacao.
While en route to Curacao, Amy and Brad went to a nightclub. Brad left first, and Amy soon followed suit. Around 5:30 a.m., Ron checked on his daughter, who was asleep. He returned at 6 a.m. to wake her up. To Ron's shock, Amy was nowhere to be found...
Amy's bed was empty, and Ron immediately panicked. Where could his daughter have gone within the half-hour window? He immediately spoke to Brad about the previous night's events...
Brad told his father he saw Amy dancing with a man named Alister Douglas, nicknamed "Yellow," before he left. He was a member of the band Blue Orchid that was performing at the club that night. Could he have played a role in Amy's disappearance?
Ron and Iva immediately alerted the cruise ship authorities to Amy's sudden disappearance. They pleaded with them not to dock the ship, fearing anyone involved would escape. Unfortunately, the crew denied their request, and the ship docked in Curacao as planned.
Once docked, authorities checked the ship, but they came up empty-handed. Police even questioned Alister, the last man seen with Amy, but there wasn't enough evidence to detain him. The family was frustrated that many of the passengers had departed the ship before the search was over. If Amy was kidnapped, her captors could've easily escaped.
Police immediately issued a missing person alert for Amy. People all over the island of Curacao were made aware of the situation, and her family desperately hoped someone would come forward with any information.
Authorities wondered whether Amy, intoxicated, might've fallen overboard after she left the club, but there was no evidence to support that theory. The Bradleys were devastated, and without any information about Amy's whereabouts, they were forced to return home without their daughter.
Although there was no evidence to support the claim, Amy's parents firmly believed she was abducted. Brad noted that the cruise ship employees seemed to give her "extra" attention while she was in the club. Upon returning home, the Bradleys used every outlet possible to let the world know what happened, and the community rallied around them.
Shortly after they returned home, Ron and Brad flew back to Curacao to continue the search for Amy. While on the island, the men posted flyers of Amy everywhere. They were offering $260,000 to anyone who could help them find her.
Amazingly, within 24 hours, a taxi driver on the island told the men he saw Amy in a frantic state just minutes after the Rhapsody of the Seas docked. She allegedly ran up to his car window and asked where the nearest telephone was, and then she ran off. Her family was now convinced she was still somewhere in Curacao.
With the help of local police, Ron and Brad scoured the entire island. They checked every hotel, store, and beach, but Amy was nowhere to be found. Disappointed and distraught, they had no choice but to return home yet again without Amy.
As time passed, more people came forward with stories about spotting Amy, which only strengthened the Bradley family's certainty that she was kidnapped. They feared she was in the Caribbean being held against her will...
In one such "sighting," two Canadian tourists visiting Curacao believed they spotted Amy walking along the beach. The woman they saw had the same tattoos: the Tasmanian Devil spinning a basketball on her shoulder, a sun on her lower back, a gecko lizard on her navel, and a Chinese symbol located on her right ankle.
In another, a man named David Carmichael said he saw a woman who matched Amy's description walking along the beach flanked by two men. When she approached David, he said, the men hustled her away. The Bradley family had local police search the area where the alleged encounter took place, but they found nothing.
Another man from the Navy reportedly saw Amy inside a Curacao brothel. He said a woman approached him and said her name was Amy Bradley and she needed help, but she was quickly whisked away by brothel workers. Because the sailor wasn't supposed to be in the brothel, he didn't immediately go to police. The brothel has since burned down.
There was another possible sighting of Amy in a restroom in Barbados. A tourist named Judy Maurer claimed to have run into the woman, who looked terrified. However, Judy quickly left, and she never saw the woman again.
Then, in 2005, an anonymous source emailed the Bradley family photos of a scantily-clad woman who supposedly was their daughter. Detectives, however, couldn't track down the original source, but the family saw the pictures as evidence Amy was, in fact, forced into sexual slavery.
All of these leads have given the Bradleys hope that Amy will one day return home. They hired a private investigator in Curacao, and he made it his mission to find her. Until he does, the family thinks about her every day and will continue to keep her memory alive.
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