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St. Gabriel Police: Teen girl missing for over two years found in man's car, man arrested
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ST. GABRIEL — A man was arrested after a teenager who was missing for over two years was found with him, according to police.
"I been here all my life, and I'm 62 years old, and I ain't never of heard of nothing like this. That's bad," St. Gabriel resident Jeffery Ben said.
Police say they made contact with Lionel Moore, 39 after he was observed urinating in a public street.
"After a check of driver's license, we noticed he had warrants for East Baton Rouge for failure to register as a sex offender," St. Gabriel Police Chief Kevin Ambeau said.
That was not the only discovery; in Moore's car, police found a teenage girl who was reported missing out of Baton Rouge in February of 2024 when she was just 15 years old.
"Captain on the scene noticed her characteristics. She was dressed older than she was, at 17. She gave him several different date of births that did not match up with her age," Ambeau said.
Ambeau says the teen confessed she had been with Moore for close to three years.
"Her mom had reported her missing and my captain was able to get the mom's number, and we contacted the mom who had moved out of state," he said.
The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services was contacted to assist the teenager.
Moore was taken into custody on a felony warrant out of East Baton Rouge. He was previously convicted of indecent behavior with juveniles in Iberville Parish; he has been arrested in East Baton Rouge Parish multiple times for failing to register as a sex offender.
Ambeau says detectives are still working to determine whether this was a situation of sex trafficking.
"He's trying to do face recognition from our body cameras, see if she's on any of the sites, any of the sex trafficking sites," Ambeau said.
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