This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number 2000-LD-BX-K001 administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, coordinates the activities of the following offices and bureaus: Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Amy’s Choice. A true story in her own words. 

I didn’t think I had anyone to talk to about what was going on in my life. All the bad things, all the feelings I had for myself, just normal teenage feeling. 


So I just met someone online that I didn’t know, and he said that basically the grass was greener on his side. 


I first met him on one of the private chatrooms where you would just talk to, like so many people. And then I would make my own and then we talked from there. 

And that progressed for about a month.  

Well I knew from the start that he was how old he was.

I just, I didn’t even think that we would have a relationship. 

He was like a stranger and you can tell strangers things you’re never going to meet, stuff that you couldn’t tell your friends.

He was saying You’re not worthless.  You know, you can come over here and I’ll take care of you until you can, you know basically take care of yourself, and you won’t have to deal with that any more. And I just thought that was so much better than staying where I was.

The second time I ran away, it was I didn’t want to but I knew if I didn’t, there might be like a little more trouble. 

Because he came to my house and I get this call from someone else that he talked to online, and she said that he was outside waiting for me. I told my mom I was going out for a walk for a little while and then I took off.  

I would rather have went to my friends, which would have accepted because I didn’t know at the time, that most of them were going through the same thing I was. 

I was gone for about two days, and they caught us at another bus terminal.

They finally charged him with taking a minor over state lines and he’s right now sitting in prison. (Police Siren Sound)


It was scary because he called me, because then he knew where I lived.  He knew what my phone number was, so when he gets out of prison he could just call me right back again and start this all over again.

Well he said he had done it before, but he never got caught. So the only thing that is in my mind is where are they at?  Where are the past people that he’s met before?

If you say that it’s not going to happen to you and you keep progressing more and more, then it’s eventually going to happen to you, whether you want it to or not, because you never know who that person is or what that person is capable of. 

Because he could one day just show up, he or she show up at your doorstep just waiting for you.

When you getting over your head, you’re thinking, Oh no, my parents will know what I’m doing; I can’t tell them; they’ll get so mad. I’ll get in trouble. Well don’t think of it like that. Think of as, if you keep talking to this person over the Internet, you don’t know what they are capable of. 

There has been different scenarios in my mind of what happened, and what could have happened and the one that did happen. I was lucky that I’m not dead on the side of the road right now six feet under. That’s how I feel about it.

I can’t believe I did this. Why did I do that for? All these things.

It was like a fairy tale that never happened. 

It’s very scary.

If you or someone you know has been victimized, make a report at www.cybertipline.com or call 
1-800-843-5678. 

www.netsmartz.org

Net Smartz is a program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.