Pandemic Has Slowed the Search for Missing Teen

'I’m worried she’ll be forgotten,' Julia Mann's mom says
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 5, 2020 4:00 AM CDT
Pandemic Has Slowed the Search for Missing Teen
Julia Mann is shown in a picture from her missing child poster.   (MissingKids.org)

Julia Mann was last seen just before heading to bed at her family's Georgia home on Feb. 20. By the next morning, the 17-year-old was gone, and she's still missing. Authorities say it appears she left home by choice, and her mother acknowledges she may have snuck out to meet a friend—but she believes her daughter planned to return. "She took so little with her,” Terrie Clark tells NBC. “And she would never stay away and not tell anyone. There’s no indication to me that she ran away.” Julia left with just her cellphone and laptop, neither of which have been used since she vanished. Nor have her social media accounts been used, all of which has investigators concerned for her safety.

Clark says Julia enjoyed playing the online role-playing game Wizard101, and she's concerned the teen may have met someone on the game who convinced her to leave home. No trace of the teen has yet been found. "She most certainly has to be in danger by now," the Oconee County sheriff said back in early March, per WJCL. "She didn't have any money. ... I'm just really afraid that maybe she trusted the wrong person." Clark says the coronavirus pandemic has slowed the search. "I’m worried she’ll be forgotten,” she says. “We’ve been living this nightmare since February and now with coronavirus, everything has stalled. And it’s just a scary time out there right now, that I’m even more worried.” (More missing teen stories.)

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