A Georgia teenager who ran away from home and had been missing for more than a year was found safe in Tennessee, authorities said Monday.
Asata Amun, now 17, dashed out of her father’s residence in Buford, Ga., on Feb. 1, 2024, with no belongings and no shoes, according her family.
But shortly after her mother spoke with a local news station in Atlanta last week, Amun was located in the custody of Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services. Police said she’d been living under an alias since shortly after her disappearance.
“I dropped the phone when I heard it. I couldn’t believe it,” Amun’s mother, Jasmine Dominique, told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB.
Amun had no contact with her parents for more than a year, leading Dominique to speak with WSB last week and plead for her daughter’s safe return.
The teen reportedly ran away after a dispute with her father, Kwabena Amun, and a disciplinary issue at her high school. Last year, her dad told WSB that he threatened to send Asata to military school, after which point she fled.
In the meantime, Amun’s two sisters were removed from Kwabena’s home by Georgia’s Division of Family & Children Services after learning of abuse accusations against Kwabena. He has denied those allegations.
“Thank God they’re not with him,” Dominique, who lives in Connecticut, told WSB last week. She said her daughter doesn’t know anyone in Tennessee.
Police said Amun will be transferred to the custody of Georgia’s DFCS. Cops in Gwinnett County are still investigating her disappearance.