AN ANGRY MOTHER revealed chilling red flags before her 12-year-old daughter vanished without a trace.
Lateefah Smith claimed that her daughter, Ariyah Garcia-Smith, never expressed dissatisfaction with her family before disappearing on September 21.
“I saw her as I was leaving for work in the morning,” the mother told PIX11 News.
Smith, a Department of Education employee, said she never expected Ariyah to flee.
It revealed. However, the young girl is groomed for over a year by an older man.
Smith stated that when Ariyah woke up in the middle of the night in September 2021, she had just begun sixth grade at Intermediate School 51.
“It’s late at night; I’m hearing what sounds like a man’s voice laughing,” she explained.
“When I walk in, she’s talking to someone with her shirt off, holding the DOE laptop.”
Smith stated that she couldn’t see the man’s face because it was blurred while he and Ariyah spoke in the Redden Anime chat room.
The next day, she took the computer to school, where officials called the cops and filed a report.
“The police said it was like a “burner phone” a week later,” she explained of the man.
The DOE resolved the computer issue, but Smith stated that she transferred her daughter from I.S. 51 in May 2022 due to a separate incident.
Ariyah started seventh grade at I.S. 72, about five miles away, but Smith said the girl’s journal indicated she was unhappy there.
Ariyah’s phone was last pinged on September 21 near Mariner’s Harbor public housing, about a mile from her home.
Smith claims that the family lived there until about six years ago.
Lisa Smith, a neighbour, said Ariyah’s mother had cried every night since she went missing.
“It breaks my heart,” she said.
“She’s a lovely little girl.” Every day, I see her. Never a problem.”
Ariyah’s mother said she has been riding the Staten Island Ferry every night in search of her daughter and looking for a local McDonald’s.
The school of Ariyah’s claim, contacted the Administration for Children’s Services after a classmate claimed Ariyah’s mother neglected her daughter and was aware of her 20-year-old “boyfriend.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmTiTwl_0yM
ACS visited Ariyah’s mother and stated that she did, but she denied any allegations of abuse or neglect.
Lisa Smith, a neighbour, said she had assisted Ariyah’s mother by posting notices about the girl’s disappearance on social media.
“I found a lot of nonsense while trying to help post it on the website.”
“Black American children… They’ve been missing for quite some time.”
Ariyah’s mother pleads with anyone who knows about her daughter to come forward.