Police are searching for two teenage girls who have been missing since Friday. Police believe that Rachel Samantha Smith, 16, of Potomac, and Rachel Lacey Crites, 18, of Gaithersburg, told their parents on Friday that they were going to go see a movie in Georgetown, but that they may have gone instead to Charlestown, W. Va.
According to a statement released by the Montgomery County Police, detectives do not believe foul play to have been involved in the girls’ disappearance, but they are concerned about the girls’ mental state.
Officer Melanie Hadley, spokesperson for Montgomery County Police, confirmed reports that Crites’ father found a letter from his daughter indicating that she was unhappy, but did not specify the content of that note.
“We’re just trying our best to get the word out to [the two girls] that if they are listening or they are reading to at least call and say, ‘Hey, we’re okay,’” said Hadley. “They don’t have to say that they are coming home or tell us where they are; right now we just want to know that they are okay.”
Hadley said that as of early Tuesday afternoon police still had not made contact with the girls.
NO “AMBER ALERT” has been issued by police. An Amber Alert is issued in cases where a child under 18 years of age is abducted and there is reason to believe that the child is in serious danger of bodily harm or death, said Sonia Pruitt, a spokesperson for Montgomery County Police. The information is then passed to Maryland State Police who coordinate efforts to alert the public and work with other state police authorities to find the suspect and child, said Pruitt. The alert was not issued in this case because the girls are believed to have left voluntarily, said Hadley.
A mass e-mail sent by a friend of one of the girls' parents to community groups and media outlets across the nation claimed that an Amber Alert had been issued, Hadley said. This caused considerable confusion Tuesday morning as Montgomery County Police fielded calls from news media as far away as Texas, Hadley said.
Crites graduated from Thomas Wootton High School last year, and Smith is currently a student at the school. Hadley said that the two have been close friends for some time, but did not say exactly for how long.
According to police, Rachel Samantha Smith is a 5-foot-1 white female, weighs 118 pounds, and has green eyes and medium/collar-length brown hair. Rachel Lacy Crites is a 5-foot-4 white female, weighs 110 pounds, and has brown eyes and brown medium/collar-length hair.
The two girls were driving a dark blue Subaru Outback station wagon with Maryland license plate number MBJ-485.
Detectives are asking anyone with information about the girls to call the non-emergency number for the Montgomery County Police at 301-279-8000, or the Family Crimes Division at 240-773-5400.