Florida 10-year-old Gabby Terrelonge still missing | What we know
By Madilyn Destefano
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ORLANDO, Fla. (WESH) — The father of a missing 10-year-old girl, Gabrielle Terrelonge, spoke to news outlets on Wednesday about his missing daughter.
“In the last moments I had with my daughter, she was happy, energized. Her mom was out of it. Me and her had a brief second to talk, but it wasn’t really much,” Gordon Terrelonge said. “Because I didn’t want to go back to jail, or to really jeopardize myself from what I went through. I pretty much had to leave. So those were the last moments I had with my daughter. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to remember,”
The Margate Police Department has been in Central Florida, working with local and state law enforcement to search for Gabby.
WESH 2 was told officials would be giving an update, but no officials spoke on Wednesday when Gordon Terrelonge addressed news outlets.
When was Gabby last seen
Gabby was last seen on June 30 after stepping off a Greyhound bus with her mother at the Florida Mall in Orlando.
Since then, police have been working with law enforcement across the state to track down any sign of the child.
At the request of MPD, detectives from the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office have canvassed abandoned hotels in the area of West U.S. Route 192, looking for Gabby.
According to OCSO, the family has been known to frequent this area in the past. The family has also been known to use Greyhound or Flixbus to travel between South and Central Florida, including Orlando and other parts of Orange County.
Osceola detectives emphasized that it is “all hands on deck” in the search for Gabby.
Investigators reported that Gabby and her mother were seen together at a Walmart in Hollywood, Florida, on June 21, captured by cameras in the checkout line.
Mother arrested Margate police arrested Gabrielle’s mother on Oct. 17 for allegedly shoplifting at a Dollar Tree store, leading to her spending two weeks behind bars.
During her incarceration, Gabby’s father, who resides in Central Florida, reported her missing on Oct. 29 when he discovered that her mom was in Broward County jail.
Passha Davis, 34, was booked into the Broward County Jail for a second time on Nov. 4 and charged with child neglect without bodily harm.
Davis remains behind bars and faces a $100,000 bond.
Gabrielle’s aunt, who lives in St. Lucie County, expressed her concerns to an NBC affiliate in Miami, saying, “I fear that someone has taken her or she’s given her to someone she doesn’t know.”
The child’s aunt mentioned that Davis suffers from mental illness and has attempted to gain custody of Gabrielle, citing the mother’s erratic behavior.
“I feel very like powerless, so angry because I know things were not progressively getting better, they’re progressively getting worse,” she said.
The aunt also recounted the last time she tracked them down, which was last year, finding Gabrielle sleeping on a cardboard mat at 3:30 in the morning in an alleyway next to a pizza shop in Plantation.
Gabby’s father According to Osceola detectives, Gordon Terrelonge took a polygraph test related to her disappearance and passed.
WESH 2 previously spoke with Gabby’s father, who said, “I’ve been pretty much in my head thinking the worst. In a nightmare. I don’t want to believe it.”
Gabby’s dad said at one point, investigators brought him in to talk with her mom. When he asked her where Gabrielle was, he said she told him he had her.
“Just think about it. I’m her father. How, every single day that she’s missing, I won’t be able to move on. Like, pretty much that’s my life you’re holding. I need it back. I need it back,” he said.
$5,000 reward A $5,000 reward is being offered to help solve the disappearance of Gabby.
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