More than two weeks after two 14-year-old Lake County girls drove off with clothing, camping gear and $300, police turned to the public Wednesday for help in tracking them down.
“It’s been long enough now that we’re hoping they haven’t fallen into any harm,” said Richard Becmer, deputy chief of the Fox Lake Police Department. “It just seems so strange that they were so bold as to do this.”
Jessica Martinez of Fox Lake and her best friend, Kalyn McCart of Spring Grove, were last seen at Martinez’s home Aug. 16 after they returned from a shopping trip.
Sometime between midnight and 5 a.m. Aug. 17, the girls apparently sneaked out of the house and left with Martinez’s mother’s car, police said.
The girls called a friend later that day and said they were in southern Missouri. They have not been heard from since.
The girls left a note on Martinez’s bed saying they were tired of their parents not trusting them or letting them do what they wanted to do and that they were old enough to take care of themselves.
“I think when it all initially went down, we kind of felt that maybe it was the rebellious stage,” said Dawn Kempf, Martinez’s mother. “I know that they do tend to fight for their freedom. But after the first week, there were no phone calls. It’s getting scarier and scarier.”
Both girls had good grades and had never shown any inclination to run away, their parents said.
“What we had hoped for in waiting these two weeks was for school to start,” Becmer said. “We had hoped that the kids would not want to miss school, or that someone that they’d been in contact with would then go to school and start talking to everybody.”
McCart’s mother, Margaret Wert, said her daughter was excited about starting high school. At first she thought the two girls were playing a game to scare their parents, but when high school orientation came and went, her concern grew.
“I’m really worried,” Wert said. “I think something’s wrong. If it was fear to come home, it just seems like they would have called somebody.”
Classes started Tuesday at Grant High School in Fox Lake, where the girls were to enter 9th grade. Becmer said police were at the school Tuesday and Wednesday but found no evidence that anyone there had been in touch with the girls since Aug. 17.
“Now, obviously, the level of concern is beginning to intensify,” Becmer said.
Investigators have no idea where the girls might be, and they have no evidence that they were abducted.
Both families said they suspect the girls may have been lured away by an older person, possibly someone they met on the Internet. After examining Martinez’s computer, police found that she had been looking at maps of two locations in Texas and one in Nebraska and had been in a chat room before running away.
“There’s somebody else, just because of the way things were done,” said Kevin Kempf, her stepfather. He said neither girl had learned how to drive. “I don’t think they would have made it five blocks without running off the road.”
Police said they have no evidence that another person was involved. They are operating on the assumption that the girls drove the car themselves.
Fox Lake investigators have contacted police in the three cities the girls had investigated on the computer: Dallas; Denton, Texas; and North Platte, Neb. They have also notified authorities in Missouri.
The girls’ parents have been calling friends and relatives in other states, distributing posters of the girls in Lake County and asking truck drivers to put up posters wherever they stop.
Wert said the girls had become best friends over the past year. Both were involved in track and volleyball and regularly went to movies in Fox Lake with friends.
McCart has blue eyes and blond hair, is 5 foot 9 and weighs 125 pounds. Martinez has brown eyes and brown hair, is 5 feet tall and weighs 150 pounds.
They were driving a red 1988 Chevrolet Cavalier with Illinois plate number 1576200. Anyone with information about the girls is asked to contact Fox Lake police at 847-587-3100.
“Hopefully, they’re in the next neighborhood over from us having fun, sitting around and watching Oprah,” Becmer said. “We can only hope.”
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