Girls in false Amber Alert with Children Services

Staff report

BAZETTA

Bazetta Township Police will have no further involvement in the case of a false Amber Alert issued out of South Carolina on Wednesday. The two girls, age 1 and 2, were found in Bazetta and are spending Christmas in the care of Trumbull County Children Services.

The Amber Alert was issued by the girls’ aunt, Lisa Jordan, who is being held in South Carolina on $16,000 bond, charged with making false police reports. She had told police the children’s mother had taken them and also stolen Jordan’s car.

Although the aunt is the children’s legal guardian, it was determined that the mother was not legally restricted from having the children. Detective Joe Sofchek said the department received an anonymous call Thursday saying that a red Honda Civic with South Carolina license plates had been spotted at a Bazetta Walmart.

“When we got there, they were backing out of the space,” Sofchek said. “Thirty more seconds and we would have missed them.”

The two girls were in the car with their mother and grandmother and a male from Warren whose relationship to the family was unclear. He was questioned and released.

“Then just like an angel, he disappeared,” Sofchek said. “We never saw him after that.”

Sofchek said Bazetta police will not take further action in the case, which is being handed over to Pickens County Sheriff’s Department.

“Why they were coming back here or what they were doing, we have no idea,” Sofchek said, adding that the girls were taken by Trumbull County Children Services, and the mother and grandmother were free to go.

“They asked me how to get back to South Carolina,” Sofchek said.