Teen's MySpace rendezvous in W. Bank thwarted

David N. Goodman
Associated Press
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Detroit, Micigan (US):
A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. She was on her way home Friday.
The teen is a straight-A student, her father said. "She's a good girl. Never had a problem with her," he said.
The student, who lives with her mother about 80 miles north of Detroit, disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff's officials said. They said she apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho and whom she contacted about three months ago.
The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York's Kennedy Airport to Tel Aviv. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, the FBI said.
June 10, 2006