Texas authorities have found a Hello Kitty backpack believed to belong to an 11-year-old girl who went missing from her bus stop Thursday morning.
Audrii Cunningham was last seen headed to her neighborhood bus stop from her home in the 100 block of Lakeside Drive in Polk County at around 7 a.m. on February 15. She never made it to school, and administrators contacted authorities to report her missing.
An AMBER alert was issued for the girl while local and state authorities mobilized to investigate her disappearance.
The backpack was found the next day near the Lake Livingston Dam, according to a news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. The public has been asked to stay away from this area near Scenic Loop 277, KBTX reported. Other than the backpack, which authorities believe belongs to the missing girl, there has been no trace of Cunningham.
However, a man living behind her home — 42-year-old Don Steven McDougal — was identified as a key person of interest. He was arrested on February 16 for an unrelated charge of aggravated assault.
McDougal was reportedly a family friend and used to babysit Cunningham despite his lengthy criminal history, which includes a charge of child enticement in Brazoria County in 2008. However, local authorities are not limiting the scope of their investigation to just one person.
“Mr. McDougal is our main person of interest, but we are not ruling anyone else out who might be involved. We are not honing in on just this one individual. We’re making sure that we’re covering all stones,” said Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons, according to KBTX.
Polk County Crime Stoppers is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the person responsible for Cunningham’s disappearance. She stands at 4 ft. 1 in. tall, has blonde hair and blue eyes, and was last seen wearing black pants, a black hoodie with white letters, and black shoes.
Anyone with information about McDougal’s whereabouts during the possible abduction is encouraged to come forward. He may have been driving a dark blue 2003 Chevrolet Suburban.
According to the Texas Center for the Missing, most new missing persons reports in 2022 involved minors under the age of 18 — 340,573 out of 546,568. Stranger and non-family abductions are considered the most likely to result in bodily injury and death, but they are also the least common, representing up to 4% of missing child cases.
In Dallas, 23 kidnappings have been reported in 2024 as of February 18, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard. Of these, 11 were classified as involving family members. The majority of victims were black or Hispanic women and girls, with a median age of 34.