19 year old Katelin Akens was last seen on Saturday December 5, 2015 in Alexandria, Virginia.
Disappearance
James Branton, Katelin’s stepfather, says he drove her to the Reagan National Airport on December 5, 2015. The airport is about 60 miles from his home in Spotsylvania County.
He says that Katelin told him to drop her off at the Springfield Mall so she could spend a few hours there before her flight.
Her stepfather said that Katelin was dropped off at the mall between 1 and 2 p.m., and that she told him she was going to take the Franconia-Springfield metro to the airport to catch her flight later that afternoon.
She was supposed to fly to Arizona at 5:40 pm, but she missed the flight. Since then, no one has seen or heard from her.
Investigation
At 1:56 pm, Katelin sent her mother a text saying that she had made it to the airport and that her phone’s battery was dying, so she wouldn’t be able to text for a while.
When the police followed her phone, they found that it had rung 30 miles from the airport.
At 7:15 p.m., Katelin’s phone sent her mother another text saying she wanted to be alone. The place where that message came from was 15 miles from Fredricksburg.
A few days later, her luggage was found in a ditch 50 miles from the airport near the city limits of Fredricksburg. It was in the 6600 block of River Road.
Inside the bag were her wallet and plane ticket. Some of her clothes and her cell phone were gone. Since she left, her phone has not been turned back on.
At 2 p.m. on the day Katelin went missing, her stepfather sent a message to her mother saying that he had just dropped her off. But the police found out later that his phone went off near his house, not at the airport or at the mall.
The stepfather also said he had to work that day at 3 p.m., but it turned out that he didn’t go to work.
Katelin was supposedly dropped off at a mall, but there are no surveillance cameras there, and investigators haven’t been able to confirm that she ever went to the mall, the subway, or the airport. Officials say that there is no proof that Katelin ever left Spotsylvania County.
Katelin was last seen at her stepfather’s house. He told police he dropped her off at the mall, but authorities say he never did. He wouldn’t help the police or take a lie detector test, and he wouldn’t let them look at his phone.
Whereabouts
Katelin Akens went missing, but no one has been charged yet, and the investigation is still going on.
Her family and friends say it’s not like her to just disappear without a word. At the time she went missing, she was looking forward to going to beauty school in Arizona. She has never been diagnosed with a mental illness or gone missing without warning.
The police think something bad happened because they don’t think she left on her own. Her case hasn’t been solved yet.
Appearance
Katelin was born on September 2, 1996, and she is a white woman. She is 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, and has blue eyes and blonde hair.
Her family says she might be wearing a dark grey fleece pullover sweater with a Bass Pro Shop logo on it and pink and grey Vans brand shoes.
Katelin has a tattoo of three red stars bursting on the top of her left foot and a tattoo of butterflies on the left side of her forearm. She has piercings in her nose, navel, and the right side of her upper lip.
Investigating Agency
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Katelin Akens please contact the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office at (540) 582-7115 or the Spotsylvania Crime Stoppers at (800) 928-5822.