PENSACOLA, Fla. - The two teens reported "missing" yesterday are ensconced in a youth homeless shelter in Pensacola, Florida, awaiting transport back to their families in White County, said an Escambia County deputy earlier today.
Sgt. Andrew Hobbs of the Escambia County Sheriff's Department advised this afternoon that the two were picked up earlier today at an undisclosed location in Pensacola. The apprehension of the teens - Raven Renshaw, 17, and Caleb Hollingsworth, 16 - was not in the jurisdiction of Pensacola city police, but was a county matter, Hobbs said.
Hobbs said that the two are safe and sound and are being lodged at The Currie House, a homeless shelter for runaway youths ages 10 through 17, operated by Lutheran Family Services.
"They're being treated as runaways and have no criminal charges pending against them in Florida," Hobbs said.
Hobbs echoed the information White County Sheriff Doug Maier told Disclosure earlier this afternoon when he indicated that the two were going to be transported back to their families in Carmi and Norris City.
Maier had told Disclosure yesterday that the two had made contact with a friend advising that they were in the Pensacola area. A phone ping on Renshaw's phone picked them up there, but they had not been specifically located yet. Before Disclosure had the chance to update this morning, members of Hollingsworth's family, apparently unaware of how "updating" a news story works, attacked the publication under the post about the teens being tracked to Pensacola and inexplicably filled their social networking pages with comments on how our reports were "lies," all of them based strictly on either what the family had already posted, or what Maier had told us directly.
This brought into question exactly why the kids ran away in the first place. On her Facebook page, openly, the mother of Hollingsworth, Jessica Judge, accused her son of taking meds from her and indicated that he was "telling all kinds of lies" about how she was treating him.
The Currie House is devoted to ensuring that if a child is living in an abusive or neglectful home, which circumstances may have been what prompted them to run away, they report that to child protective services and the child is taken into protective custody. The agency then works with authorities to ensure that the alleged abuser is charged.
This may or may not have some kind of outcome in White County. As horrible as Illinois Department of Children and Family Services are, Florida's is legendary for being among the worst in the country.
Whatever the case, many authorities are questioning Ms. Judge's behavior during the whole ordeal (which began Monday when the two took off.) Their questioning reflects concern over the type of harassment and badmouthing she's been doing on social networking about this publication and website. Additionally, it appears that the two families - the Renshaws and the Hollingsworths - were also slinging barbs at each other on social networking last night (which is how we found out they were under their mistaken impression about Disclosure having no update, as they were bringing us into it at that time), with Renshaws blaming the Hollingsworth boy and calling him 'violent,' and Judge blaming the Renshaws for the girl being a 'bad influence' on the boy...making the whole thing appear to be a much bigger Jerry Springer-type drama than what it actually was, and causing a casual observer to come under the impression that someone was playing it for all it was worth and enjoying the attention:
Unbelievable.
The kids might be facing some sort of criminal charge out of Illinois, Florida officials said, but declined to state what that would be. Local authorities have yet to indicate such a matter, but it might involve the Nissan the two took off in. We'll bring updates as they become available...and, for those who are unfamiliar with the process, as we have time.