The following is a statement from the North Platte Police Department regarding the case of Gracie Toelle, an area teen who was missing since March and was recently found safe in California.
On November 18th, 2016 the North Platte Police Department received a call from a youth shelter in San Francisco, CA in regards to Gracie Toelle being at the facility. NPPD contacted San Francisco PD and they verified the information. It was determined that Gracie was uninjured and arrived at the facility voluntarily. Her dog that she left with was determined to have died at some point during her disappearance.
Gracie’s guardian was contacted and it has been confirmed a family member has taken custody of Gracie in California. Gracie faces no criminal charges in Lincoln County. Gracie has chosen at this point not to speak with authorities about what has occurred during the months that she has been missing.
Unless further information becomes available we have suspended our investigation as no criminal activity has been identified. This case was originally classified as a runaway juvenile and that status remains unchanged.
We are pleased that Gracie has been located and reunited with her family. Many hours have been spent on this investigation by the NPPD. Numerous local and out of state agencies assisted us in the follow up of leads that were received. One of the leads coincidentally located a different a missing juvenile. Social media companies played a large role in the investigation and were very helpful in assisting with the investigation. We would like to thank the following agencies for their assistance in no particular order:
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office
- Nebraska State Patrol
- Columbus Police Dept.
- Frontier County Sheriff’s Office
- Centerville, IA Police Dept.
- Evans, NY Police Dept.
- Cheyenne, WY Police Dept.
- Center for Search and Investigations (CFSI)
- Pine County, MN Sheriff’s Office
- Sterling, CO Police Dept.
- Crenshaw County, AL Sheriff’s Office
- Soldotma, AK Police Dept.
- Kenai, AK Police Dept.
- San Francisco, CA Police Dept.
- State of California Child Protective Services
- FBI Nebraska and New York
- Bastrop, TX Police Dept.
- North Platte Guardians of the Children
- Kik, INC Social Media
- Skype, INC Social Media
- Facebook, INC Social Media
- T-Mobile Communications
- Time Warner Cable
- Windstream Communications
We also would like to thank the public and local news media for getting the information spread across the nation.
Investigator John Deal-NPPD