Gamer Accused of Kidnapping 11-Year-Old Girl He Met Playing Minecraft

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John Peter Byrns Bibb / County Sheriff's Office

Missing Orlando girl, 11, found in Georgia with alleged abductor

ORLANDO — Bibb County Sheriff’s Deputies, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Florida’s Orange County Sheriff’s Office, located an eleven year old girl and her abductor Sunday afternoon at a hotel located in west Macon, Georgia.

Alice Amelia Johnson, age eleven, from Orlando, Florida was reported as an endangered runaway by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office at around 9:00a.m. Sunday morning.

Johnson’s phone was being tracked by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office as she was traveling north with twenty-four year old John Peter Byrns of Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Just before 2:00p.m., the Orange County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Bibb Sheriff’s Office as Johnson’s phone was tracked to an area near Presidential Parkway, in west Bibb. Deputies began to check the area in an attempt to locate Johnson and Byrns.

At around 4:00p.m. Bibb Sheriff’s Deputies were contacted by Resident Agent in Charge Andy Smith, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Agent Smith met with Bibb Sheriff’s Deputies and assisted with tracking Johnson’s phone.

Byrns vehicle was found at the Holiday Inn Express hotel, located at 4970 Harrison Road, at around 5:00pm. F.B.I. agents and deputies safely recovered Alice Amelia Johnson and took John Byrns into custody after they were found inside of one of the hotel rooms.

WESH reported: “This is someone that she’s been communicating with online under the guise of being a female and basically has just pulled her into a trap, so to speak,” her father said.

The girl’s parents said they were aware that she had been playing the game Minecraft online with a person who claimed to be a young woman from Illinois. The two had never met and her dad never dreamed his daughter might be in danger.

It’s not known how she ended up in Georgia or what may have happened to her. Before her parents left to drive to Macon to get her, they had a heartfelt warning to share.

“We felt like we were having oversight into her personal world..but there’s always just that danger that you’re not possibly, ya’ know keeping a close enough eye,” her father said.

Byrns is currently being held for the F.B.I. at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center. Johnson’s family has been notified.

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