CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — An Amber Alert sent to cellphones in parts of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina were delayed Wednesday evening, in the alleged abduction of a 17-year-old girl.
Authorities in Bloxom, Virginia, a small town along the Eastern Shore were notified that Yuli Godiness had been taken by a woman from a family member’s house just after 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The only piece of information authorities released to the public was a photo of a white vehicle with a North Carolina license plate, and the warning that she was in extreme danger.
Yuli, along with another individual, was found safe in Charlotte Thursday morning shortly after 1.
Queen City News contacted Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police to get insight into where she was found, or exactly who she was found with.
They would not answer our question.
While Yuli is said to be safe, charges have not been filed against the individual believed to have abducted her.
Queen City News contacted Bloxom authorities Thursday for a comment, but one was not available.
Yuli was found in a city of roughly 900,000 people, which is a stark contrast from where she went missing from. Bloxom is town of fewer than 400 people, and one police officer who also serves as the police chief.
Amber Alerts are rare from this part of the world, which caused a two-hour delay in Amber Alerts being sent to mobile devices.
Virginia State Police told Queen City News that the alerts were received on every platform at the time it was issued, shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday. These went out to communities in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
However, mobile devices did not receive the alerts until 11 Wednesday night.
Corinne Geller, a representative with the Virginia State Police Department, explained to media partners WAVY, that “we were unaware of the fact that large bodies of water and state lines can impact, negatively impact who and how folks are reached… That basically required us to rework different elements of the map so that then we could alert folks.”
She went on to say that they were doing an “update that and working on our protocols for the system now that we know this can have an adverse impact on the immediate notification.”