In February this year, an Amber alert was issued for a missing pregnant girl in Wisconsin. 16-year-old Sophia Martha Franklin was three months pregnant when she disappeared from her home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Two months later, she was found safe near Omaha, Nebraska.
Sophia is pregnant with the child of her 40-year-old abductor, Gary Day. It is reported that the two met online in April 2024 and then in July, Day abducted her from her home and brought her to Arkansas. At that moment, he was serving a 72-month probation sentence after pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a minor in May 2020, as per Daily Mail.
When the probation officers went to his home for a check, they were surprised to find 16-year-old Sophia at his house. Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley said, “When they went to check on him, somebody ran out the back door, and that turned out to be a 16-year-old female from Wisconsin.”
Sophia was brought back to her home in Wisconsin. Day was arrested and a no-contact order was issued for him. Since the age of consent is 16 years old in Arkansas, Day could only be arrested for interference with custody. He bonded out and again picked up Sophia from her home in February.
Two months after her disappearance for the second time, Sophia was found near Omaha after a trucker spotted her with Day at a rest stop. As per Beaver Dam Police Chief John Kreuziger, the female trucker was suspicious to see the young girl pregnant with the 40-year-old man. Daily Mail reports that she did some research in her truck and soon realised that Sophia was a missing person. She immediately called the police.
Beaver Dam Police Department issued a press release that reads, “Law enforcement made contact with a juvenile, who was with an adult male also matching the description of the male suspect she was identified leaving with, Gary Day. Their identities were positively confirmed and as a result, the suspect, Gary Day, was taken into custody. Sophia Franklin was taken to a secure facility to await re-unification with her family.”
Day has been arrested and charged with contributing to delinquency of a child, false reporting and being a fugitive in Nebraska. In Wisconsin, he is facing four felonies including two counts of abduction of a child and two counts of child enticement.
“The Beaver Dam Police Department would like to thank the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office, as well as the numerous other law enforcement agencies that put forth the time and effort to locate Sophia. We would also like to thank the community members in multiple states for their awareness and willingness to share leads to follow to help bring Sophia safely home,” Beaver Dam Police Department further wrote in the press release.
The teen’s mom told TMJ4 in February, “I do believe that she was brainwashed. I believe that she was groomed.”
