The parents of two runaway Gardnerville Ranchos girls shifted their search Thursday to Las Vegas in hopes of finding the 13- and 15-year-old girls who left home Saturday with a 40-year-old man.
They spent three days in California after their daughters were picked up with Jeffery Alan Palmer, 40, in a motel in Manteca, Calif.
The girls' identities have since been removed from this story in light of new charges brought against Palmer on Aug. 29.
Palmer was arrested on charges of child abduction and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He is in jail in San Joaquin County on $104,000 bail. His next court appearance is Aug. 29 in Manteca.
The sisters were taken to a safe house in Stockton but ran away before their parents arrived to picked them up.
They were joined by a 16-year-old boy, who the younger girl met during the summer while she was visiting a friend.
The runaway teenagers were last seen with the boy trying to get rides at the Flying J Truck stop in Ripon, Calif. Authorities believed they may have been on their way to Oregon or Canada, but the their parents think they might be in Las Vegas.
"This is a pretty overwhelming place," their mother said in an e-mail Thursday. "This may take awhile, if they are even here."
She has been distributing fliers and posting messages on Web sites to encourage the teenagers to get in touch with their families.
"I would just like to tell them that even if they're afraid to come home, at least contact somebody and let them know they're OK," she said. "We definitely want them to know they're not in trouble. We love them."
The girls left their Gardnerville Ranchos home late Saturday night with Palmer of Gardnerville who reportedly drove them to Manteca to meet the boy.
The mother reported the runaway girls, and Palmer was arrested early Monday at a motel in Manteca with the girls and the teenage boy. Authorities said the room was littered with alcohol containers.
Their parents believe the girls contacted Palmer because he offered to take them to California to meet Leyva.
"I am not sure how this happened, but they hooked up with Jeff Palmer who offered to drive them down so Emily could visit this boy she likes," their mother said.
She said one of the girls had been exchanging text messages with Palmer for several weeks. She also said when she hit the redial button on her house phone, it dialed Palmer's number.
She told Douglas County authorities she last saw her daughters on Saturday night just before midnight. She thinks they left through a bedroom window and met up with Palmer after she went to sleep.
She said the girls and Palmer arrived in Manteca on Sunday. By this time, authorities were looking for the fugitives.
"The motel people called the cops in Manteca. It was obvious something weird was happening," she said.
By the time the mother arrived in Stockton to pick up her girls, they were gone again.
"We're just totally thrashed," she said. "We've left messages for them that they're not in trouble and to please just contact us and let us know they're OK."
She doesn't believe the teenagers have much money and thinks they are trying to get rides at truck stops.
"The truckers we talked to said they never give rides to teenagers, especially girls and thought they might be getting rides with regular drivers," she said.
She asked her daughters to call the National Runaway Switchboard at 1-800-RUNAWAY to leave their parents a message.
Palmer was convicted in 2006 of aggravated stalking, a gross misdemeanor. He received a suspended 180-day jail sentence and was placed under the supervision of the adult probation department for one year. He completed the probation.
