Law enforcement in Florida went into overdrive mode late last week when it was reported that 17-year-old Caden Speight was missing.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office issued an Amber Alert Thursday night stating that Speight was last seen around 4 p.m. Thursday in the 12800 block of SW Highway 484 in Dunnellon, which is about an hour south of Gainesville.
‘Oh, dear Jesus, please bring this young man back to his family safe and unharmed.’
The alert also stated that “law enforcement believes he may be with four unknown men, possibly Hispanic, who are driving a light-colored van. If you have any information about his whereabouts, or if you see him, please do NOT approach and call 911 immediately.”
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Image source: Marion County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office
As time wore on and the crisis heightened, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods noted that he had dedicated all of his available resources in an effort to find the teen, and his personnel worked through Thursday night and into Friday on the case. In fact, Woods later said “federal agencies” as well as reinforcements “from around the state” turned out to help.
It was a big operation, indeed.
Many observers also were worried; one replied to the alert on Facebook with the following: “Oh, dear Jesus, please bring this young man back to his family safe and unharmed.”
But the original story soon got a bit hinky.
In an updated alert Friday, the sheriff’s office said that “detectives obtained information and collected evidence that are unsupportive of the initially reported facts” and that “there is no evidence to indicate that he was taken by four Hispanic men in a light-colored van.”
Officials added that they arrived at this determination after an initial investigation of the teen’s disappearance as well as a shooting reported in the 12800 block of SW Highway 484 around 4:10 p.m. Thursday. It was the same time when — and place where — the teen was last seen.
The updated alert added that it was possible the teen “left the incident location on a black bicycle with a red and grey tent, which he purchased at Walmart on SW 19th Avenue Road in Ocala just prior to this incident being reported.” Ocala is about 40 minutes northeast of Dunnellon.
“Since Caden is still a missing endangered juvenile, MSCO is asking anyone who may have seen a male matching his description with a dark-colored mountain bike and a tent to call 911,” the sheriff’s office added.
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WESH-TV reported that when deputies arrived at the scene of the reported shooting, they found a car belonging to Speight, but he was not there. A separate WESH video report indicated that a bullet hole was found in that vehicle.
But a witness named Jackson McClure also spoke to the station Friday morning, and WESH reported he had the following to say: “I passed by here around 4 o’clock, and there was a boy, young man, believed to be the guy they’re looking for, getting something out of the truck and shoving it into a book bag, and then about 10 to 15 [minutes] later, I believe he drove by my house on a bicycle. I called [the] Marion County non-emergency line and told them what I had seen, and they said, ‘Thank you very much, that’s very helpful.'”
WESH noted that McClure also said police “did ask me if he was bleeding as he went by, and I told them no, he looked normal, and he wasn’t struggling to ride his bicycle.”
Finally, by late Friday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said Speight “has been located safe in Williston,” which is about 35 minutes northwest of Ocala.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
Sheriff Woods soon announced in a video some major developments in the case — but they cast a decidedly negative light on the teen whom law enforcement worked so hard to find.
First off, the sheriff’s office on Tuesday told Blaze News that Speight was the one who made the claim about the four Hispanic men. In fact, the sheriff’s office added to Blaze News that Speight in a text message “claimed that four Hispanic men in a white van were following him, and that he was shot.”
Woods addressed this issue and didn’t hold back, revealing that “the initial details that Caden texted to his family were proven to be false. Completely made up.”
Woods added that evidence indeed was found “of a single gunshot where Caden left his truck. However, his claims that he had been shot and abducted were quickly disproven. We then learned that he had purchased a bicycle, tent, and camping supplies just prior to him reporting this.”
The sheriff’s office on Tuesday added to Blaze News that “based on the information he provided to his family and the evidence located on scene, MCSO was working his disappearance as a possible shooting and abduction. It was clear that Caden made an effort to leave the scene in such a state that, in the context of his last text, it would appear he was shot and kidnapped.”
Woods added that “we had witnesses that contradicted the initial information. Caden simply rode away toward Williston while the rest of us were left to think the worst, and my team was working in overdrive to solve this case.”
Then came the kid’s outrageous coup de grace, which Woods detailed: “Now, content to continue the ruse, Caden — who had a handgun with him since the beginning of all of this — chose to shoot himself in the leg, causing a non-life-threatening injury just prior to walking out to the roadway where he would be located by citizens in Williston. There is zero chance that Caden’s gunshot wound came from any type of an assailant.”
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Woods added in his video update that many people have wondered if Speight will face any charges and what the cost to taxpayers will be after this “large-scale investigation and search.”
“Trust me,” the sheriff said. “It is on my mind. I can tell you those items are not off the table at this point. Right now, we are still processing all of the evidence in this case. I don’t want to make any statements on that until we have fully examined it all.”
However, despite detectives having “a lot of questions for Caden,” the sheriff added that “his parents refuse to allow my detectives to speak with him so that we could come to a true, final conclusion in all this.”
“Again, thank you citizens for your tips and information that you sent in,” Woods concluded, “and when we do have any updated information on this case, I promise you, we will provide it to you.”
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