"Come get me": How a phone call led to a missing teen's recovery
After 73 days, Wynter Wagoner's aunt describes the moment everything changed- and the uncertainty that remains.
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Haley Whitehead was doing laundry the evening after Christmas when her phone rang with what looked like a spam number.
She almost didn't answer it.
"It rang immediately back," Whitehead told me. "And when I answered it, I heard crying- like sobbing and sniffling. And I just knew. I knew when it called back, it had something to do with Wynter."
On the other end was her 13-year-old niece, Wynter Wagoner, who had been missing from Rockcastle County since October 14th- 73 days earlier.
"I said, Wynter? And she said, yes. And God, thank God you're calling me. Are you okay? And she said, Yes. And I said, Are you really okay? And she said, Yes, Haley, I'm okay."
While staying on the phone with Wynter, Whitehead immediately began texting the U.S. Marshals Service with location information. She didn't want to take any chances.
"I said, 'Do you want me to come get you?' And of course she's bawling. And she said, 'Yeah, come get me,'" Whitehead recalled. "And I said, 'Okay, tell me where you are. I'll come get you. I don't care.' She said, 'I'm a long way away.'"