11-year-old South Carolina boy drives 200 miles to meet man he befriended on Snapchat so he could live with him
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: An 11-year-old boy reportedly drove 200 miles across South Carolina in an attempt to meet a stranger he met on Snapchat, according to the Charleston Police Department.
The boy reportedly drove for three hours before spotting a police officer and pulling up next to his vehicle to tell him that he was lost.
The officer discovered that the child had driven from the northwest town of Simpsonville to Charleston. The boy, who has not been identified, told the officer that he had taken his brother's car out early Monday morning to go to Charleston to meet "an unknown male he met on Snapchat," according to police.
The boy had reportedly planned to live with the man. However, he lost the GPS signal on his father's tablet and could not recover the man's address. When he was questioned, the boy gave his name to the officer along with his father's name and cell phone number. He was reunited with his family later in the day.
Meanwhile, police officials have launched an investigation into the unknown male, according to Charleston Police Department spokesperson Charles Grancis, WCSC reported. The man has not yet been identified as the address he had given to the child disappeared as per Snapchat's features where a text or a picture disappears after being read.
Charleston Police Chief Luther T. Reynolds, while speaking to the outlet, issued a warning and an advisory for the parents of teenagers, saying: "I would love tonight, right now, anybody who's watching this, who is a parent of a child, especially an 11-year-old, to sit down with your 11-year-old right now, right this moment, and have a conversation about what you're doing on social media, the dangers, the benefits, and things that as a parent we need to talk about every day."