SAN ANDREAS-
The Calaveras County teen thought to have been abducted Tuesday actually hitchhiked, investigators say.
Sergio Vazquez’s disappearance prompted an AMBER Alert that lasted for several hours before he was found in Stockton.
Investigators say the 14-year-old Vazquez lied to his grandmother about being kidnapped.
Calaveras County Sheriff’s deputies said he hitchhiked from Calaveras High School in San Andreas to Stockton, which is about 45 miles away.
“Underneath this case at hand, it fits the criteria (for an AMBER Alert). The criteria is an abduction occurred and by the report that he made to his parents, that fit the criteria. He was also underneath the age of 17 and there was belief that there was imminent threat at the time or serious bodily injury could occur,” Calaveras County Sheriff’s Sgt. Anthony Eberhardt said.
Vazquez reportedly texted his grandmother, whom he refers to as his mother, claimed he had been kidnapped at around 10 a.m.
Roughly nine hours later, he was found alone at a Stockton K-Mart. The security guard who found him said he looked very tired and he let the teen borrow his phone moments before he was picked up by Stockton Police officers.
“I’m shocked, because at the end of the night, I didn’t find out who he was until somebody had sent me a text and then showed me a picture and I find out who he was and I was like, ‘Whoa,'” Anthony Colins, a security guard for the area, said.
Colins added the teen was asleep before officers picked him up.
Authorities could not tell FOX40 the exact charges Vazquez may face because he is a minor. He is in the custody of the county’s juvenile division, under the probation department.
FOX40 tried reaching out to the teen’s guardian. She has not returned our phone calls.
Deputies added that if Vazquez had been 18 he would have been facing a misdemeanor for filing a false police report.
