Military Police found a missing 14-year-old girl inside the Marine barracks at California's Camp Pendleton. The girl's family alleges she was raped and "sold" to a Marine.
A missing 14-year-old California girl was found inside the Marine barracks of Camp Pendleton, authorities said, and her family says the child was raped and "stolen."
The girl was found by Military Police on June 28 and has since been returned to relatives, authorities said. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is leading an investigation into the incident, assisted by the San Diego Sheriff's Department and its Human Trafficking Task Force, federal authorities said.
"I can confirm that NCIS is conducting an investigation with support from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force," spokesman Jeff Houston of the NCIS wrote to Inside Edition Digital on Wednesday, responding to a request for comment.
"No charges have been filed at this time. Out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS will not comment further while the investigation remains ongoing. As always, NCIS is committed to fully investigating any allegation of criminal behavior that threatens Department of the Navy readiness," Houston wrote.
Neither the Marine nor the girl has been identified.
The case has gone viral since a woman who identified herself as the girl's aunt posted videos to TikTok alleging the teen had been "sold" to the Marine and was raped on the military installation.
“She was found in the barracks by military police. She had been sold to a soldier for sex,” Casaundra Perez said in a TikTok video about the case. The woman said the girl has learning disabilities and was reported missing by her grandmother on June 13.
The San Diego Sheriff's Department said in a statement that the grandmother said the girl had run away before, but always returned quickly. The department responded to a report from Camp Pendleton after the girl was discovered in the barracks of a Marine, authorities said.
The Marine was briefly taken into custody and returned to the command of his unit at Camp Pendleton, Houston said.
The girl's information had been entered into multiple missing person databases, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the sheriff’s department said.
The aunt, in subsequent TikToks, said the family has received little information from military authorities and fear retribution for speaking out.
“Our family is worried about retaliation from the military and the man that has trafficked my niece,” Perez said.
“The reality is the whole facility allowed this to happen,” the woman alleged. “The security looked her in the face and allowed this man to bring a minor onto base where he then proceeded to have sex with her. Due to her age, she could not have given this consent.”
Authorities have released no details about how the girl got onto the secured military installation, how long she had been there, or why she was in a Marine barracks.
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