The father of a Long Island teen who has been missing for a month took to Facebook Saturday to thank the tipsters and police who helped bring his missing daughter to him.
“She is currently in the facility, receiving the assistance she needs and is safe,” Frank Gervasi said of his daughter Emmarae, 14, in a video posted to Facebook just before 1 p.m. The support you have given us. ”
Gervasi said “social media videos and (donated) flyers” led to an anonymous tip from a woman that helped find her daughter.
“The phone call I received said she was on Islip's boat,” he said, adding that he was skeptical at first. “The woman who tipped me was afraid to go on the boat.”
Gervais said Friday that he “rammed” the boat at a marina near the Whitecap Fish Market in Islip and rescued his daughter. He said no one else was on the boat at the time.
“Persistence brought her home,” Gervais said, suggesting there may be more than one person under investigation. He believes she was with “dangerous people.”
Emarae had run away from home at least once before and had some “hardships” in her life, Gervasi told the Saturday Post.
He said she is currently being treated at a hospital where she is undergoing “detoxification.”
He did not provide further details.
“The fact that she is safe and alive is amazing,” Gervasi said. “After I found her, it was just incredible when I held her in my arms.”
Emarae went missing after getting into an unknown car outside her Patchogue home around 5 p.m. on Dec. 9, leaving her family fearing she was being held against her will.
Gervasi was last seen leaving his house and getting into his car without a jacket or shoes on. According to Greater Long Island.
The next day, she was seen on security camera knocking on a door at a motel in Bohemia, but she disappeared again.
Gervasi said her daughter was initially in a relationship with a man she met online, but after they broke up, she was picked up by a “random” 65-year-old man she didn't know.
He believed Mr Emarae was told he could not get off the boat.
Gervais said she wants to start helping other families with missing children on Long Island.
