ST CHARLES, Mo. — The St. Charles County Police Department announced Wednesday that an Amber Alert sent through Missouri on Monday was based on a false report.
The alert asked Missourians to be on the lookout for a mother and her two daughters from O'Fallon, Missouri. The three were found in Corpus Christi, Texas, about eight hours after the alert was issued.
The department said Wednesday that investigators determined the alert was "falsely reported from the beginning."
"After being located & interviewed, SCCPD Investigators determined the initial report of abduction was exaggerated," the department said in a Facebook post. "Further investigation is ongoing and possible charges for falsely reporting a crime may be forthcoming."
On Tuesday, 5 On Your Side spent all day questioning authorities about how the incident played out and worked to obtain new information. St. Charles County police initially said they didn't know whether the incident was a legitimate kidnapping or a language barrier issue. The family is reportedly Honduran and information coming from a third party may have contributed to the thought that they were in danger, which is why they said the Amber Alert was issued out of precaution.
St. Charles County Police Department Spokesperson Cpl. Barry Bayles told 5 On Your Side it wasn't for a lack of Spanish-speaking officers. The department does have Spanish-speaking officers, but part of the language barrier had to do with what the mother was texting and how it was interpreted. Bayles also said the third-party individual said it seemed cryptic or forced, but police never had direct contact with the mother, only her text messages.
"I think that the language barrier brings up a lot in that case," said Lindenwood University Criminal Justice and Criminology Professor Darren Marhanka. "From the sounds of it, it's being reported by a third party to the law enforcement agencies as a whole, and they're acting on the information that they are getting from the third party and trying to use their best practices from that information because they don't have the ability to talk to an actual witness."
Marhanka said it's a complete and lengthy process before an Amber Alert is ever pushed out.
"What usually happens when an agency has to determine if there's an Amber Alert is that you know, they have to believe that a reasonably believe that there was an abduction that occurred and that there's going to be an imminent danger or the threat of imminent danger to the children. But, there are cases when adults become a part of that as either the abductor or maybe a victim in the case, kind of similar to what happened yesterday," the professor said.