Court documents identified the suspect as 21-year-old Shawn Paul Riherd.
Authorities describe Riherd as homeless, and had been in Arizona for three to four months prior to his arrest. Court documents also listed a number of prior arrests for Riherd, but the records were redacted.
It should be noted that officials are not accusing Riherd of kidnapping in connection with the case.
What happened?
Court documents state the missing person, who is identified as a teenager, told their mother on April 12 that they were spending the night at a friend’s house. However, that person never returned home, and their mother reported them as missing on April 13.
On that same day, investigators said the missing person and their mother had a brief text exchange, which indicated that the teen was upset with their parents. The teen later stopped responding to the family’s efforts to reach them.
While the teen’s mother was identified in court documents, we have opted not to identify the mother.
The teen’s phone, investigators said, was found by a good Samaritan on a city bus in Tempe on April 14. The phone was later returned to the family, who then turned the phone over to Chandler Police.
Per officials, many of the text messages on the teen’s phone from April 12 to April 14 were deleted, but photos found on the phone show the teen with two different people on April 13 and 14. One of the people was described as having “very distinctive tattoos on his face and neck.” While investigators found an Instagram account associated with that person, the account had the vanity name “Shawn Rodrigues” associated with it.
“The male could not be positively identified using that name in both law enforcement and open-source database searches,” read a portion of the court documents.
The teen’s family hired a private investigation service to help find them, according to investigators, and on April 17, several tips came in that suggested the missing person and the man were at an apartment complex near Dunlap Avenue and I-17.
Per investigators, police missed the two by a few hours, but they did find a Social Security card with Riherd’s name on it.
“Further investigation revealed Shawn’s full identity,” investigators wrote.
Riherd and the teen, per court documents, were found by people who were looking for the missing teen on April 21. They were found outside an abandoned department store at the former MetroCenter Mall.
The teen, according to officers, was taken to a hospital as they appeared ill, and had vomited. At the hospital, the teen tested positive for marijuana, meth, and fentanyl.
Investigators said when Riherd was interviewed after he had been read his Miranda rights, he said that he met the missing teen via mutual friend, and that he felt obligated to take care of the teen because the streets were unsafe. Riherd also told investigators that the teen originally ran away from home because they were angry with their parents, but also to see a juvenile male.
“The group stayed at the Dunlap apartment until the arrest of the juvenile male. After he was arrested, the [teen] and Shawn lived together on the street from Wednesday through Sunday, when they were located,” read a portion of the court documents.
Per court documents, Riherd told investigators that he knew the missing teen was a runaway, and admitted that he uses methamphetamine by finding people who will let him smoke their narcotics.
“Shawn described approaching people on the street to smoke methamphetamine, and then [the teen] would approach them and smoke it as well,” investigators wrote.
Officials said when Riherd was challenged about his claim that he was protecting the teen, but then exposing the teen to drug use and let the teen use narcotics, Riherd replied that the teen made that decision, and did it on their own.
What is the suspect accused of?
(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joseph Barron)” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/SG5MlJjJFv1pbMHsGZ7VGA–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MA–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ksaz_fox_local_article_698/caf09941565ac7b708e4e52daeba3c45″ class=”caas-img”>
(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joseph Barron)
Once again, it should be noted that officials are not accusing Riherd of kidnapping in connection with the case.
Meanwhile, a judge has set a $25,000 bond for Riherd, and Riherd’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 1.
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