WTVM.com and WTVM News Leader 9, Columbus, GA | Missing Grade Schooler Found Safe

Missing Grade Schooler Found Safe

A seven-hour search for a little girl from a Columbus elementary school is over.   The child is safe with her mother.

Eight-year-old Destiny Carney disappeared around 12:00 noon Thursday, while on the way to Hannan Academy's medical clinic to have her blood sugar tested.   The child is diabetic, and her insulin monitor went off in class.

A second grader at the school reported seeing Carney leave with a young man.  But it turns out that man was really a woman.  The FBI, GBI and Columbus Police questioned family members, and discovered that Carney's mother had sent her girlfriend to take her out of school.

FBI agents located Carney at around 7:00 p.m. in Griffin, Georgia where her mother lives. No charges have been filed.

Carney has been living with her grandparents, having been placed there by the Department of Family and Children's Services. But Carney's mother still has full custody of her daughter.

Investigators say the mother has been to the school several times trying to take her daughter out of school.  But DFACS had instructed the school not to allow it.

Hannan Academy still may face questions about its security, because of what happened.  "It's very upsetting," assistant principal Beth Adams said during the search.  "We have taken every precaution we could have possibly taken at this point.  No one did anything to skip over procedure, so that part we feel good about.  But of course, we are extremely concerned that a child is with someone they should not be with."

-- Deborah Singer