A missing teenager has been found alive just days after her mother made an emotional plea for her safe return on live television.
“Asata Amun has been located and is safe,” Georgia’s Gwinnett County Police said in a statement Monday, March 17. “She has been in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services since February 2024 under an alias.”
The news comes a week after Asata’s mother, Jasmine Dominique, pleaded for her return on Atlanta’s WSB-TV 2 and more than a year after the teen was last seen on her family’s doorbell camera running away barefoot. She was 16 at the time of her disappearance, as reported by PEOPLE.
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“It’s not something easy for me. It’s hard,” Dominique told the news station on March 10.
On April 18, 2024, Gwinnett County Police sought the public’s help in finding Asata, who had been missing since February 1.
According to authorities, her father, Kwabena Amun, shouted, “So you are just going to run like a coward, Asata,” as she fled.
Police searched Amun’s home and Asata’s two sisters were removed by Children’s Protective Services following allegations of physical abuse, according to WSB-TV.
Although Dominique lived in Connecticut, she remained involved in her daughter’s life. She told WSB-TV that Asata called her the last time she ran away from home.
“She knows my number. She could have sent me a message,” Dominique said of Asata.
In a June 2014 interview with WSB-TV, Amun denied being abusive and told the news station, “I just want to make sure my baby girl is okay. That she is alright.”
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Amun told WSB-TV that Asata had disciplinary issues before her disappearance and had faced trouble at North Gwinnett High School.
He suggested military school, but she opposed the idea. Amun said he initially believed she was only going to visit a friend when she left.
The department previously said the teenager “did not take any personal items with her” when she left her home, and noted that she was “disciplined by administrators at her school” the day before her disappearance.
Police said on Monday that there was a “breakthrough in the case occurred when a Tennessee Department of Children’s Services case manager identified inconsistencies in Asata Amun’s statements, prompting further research into missing children in Georgia. This led to contact with the Gwinnett County Police Department.”
“Arrangements have been made to transfer custody of Asata Amun to the Georgia Department of Family & Children Services. The investigation into her disappearance remains active,” the statement by the police said.
