New details released in Miramar teen's disappearance

MIRAMAR, Fla. (WSVN) -- New details have been released in the disappearance of a South Florida teen.

Authorities said Naketa Leiba, 17, disappeared last Wednesday on her way home from school.

A week later, detectives found her unharmed at a friend's apartment, whom she had been staying with, near Sherman Circle and 84th Avenue in Miramar. "I'm very, very happy, but right now, I'm upset because it's been going out there that she was a runaway, and she's not a runaway," said the teen's father, Michael Leiba.

However, both the FBI and Miramar Police insist the 17-year-old did, in fact, run away from home. Officials said she voluntarily gave a sworn statement to police, stating that she had run away from home and was not coerced or held against her will.

Authorities also said that Naketa Leiba's parents should have known the teen had not been abducted. "When we showed up at the apartment, she's hiding under a bunk bed," Tania Rues of the Miramar Police Department said. "Clearly, she did not want to be found."

There are also indications that 24 hours before Sharon Leiba, the mother of the 17-year-old, made a tearful plea on local radio for help in finding her missing daughter, she already knew her daughter was with someone she knew. "I want the public to know that my daughter is not a runaway," Sharon Leiba said on Friday. "She would not run away from home, so please, please, if you have any information or if you have my child, please let my baby go."

Police were able to find the teen inside the Miramar apartment because they traced a phone call that was made the day after the teen vanished, in which Naketa Leiba reportedly told her parents to leave her alone.

Even after they received that phone call, however, the teen's parents insisted their daughter had been abducted. "That's how I feel right now, is somebody's holding her against her will right now," Michael Leiba said on the radio.

Loved ones and complete strangers spent days passing out flyers and made a public plea for any information that would lead to her safe return. In addition, at least four detectives hunted for the 17-year-old. Rues said, "A tremendous amount of effort went into this case. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of staff hours, numerous detectives, IT staff, crime analysts."

It appears as though Naketa Leiba was not the child her mother made her out to be. The 17-year-old had skipped school repeatedly, and police were called to her home on Feb. 13 last year, when she broke out of her bedroom window and came back home drunk.

The teen reportedly kept company with 29-year-old Mario McCurvin at the apartment where she was found. McKurvin is a former cocaine trafficker who was recently charged with illegal possession of three guns and 211 rounds of ammunition.

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