Exclusive: Vacaville man wanted to elope with Maine teen, police source reveals
(Photo courtesy Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
A Vacaville man was heading back to California with a teenage girl he picked up in Maine when he was arrested by state troopers in Nebraska, according to a law enforcement source.
On Monday, Solano NewsNet was first to report on a missing person investigation out of Lewiston, Maine involving a 15-year-old girl who disappeared from a youth shelter last week.
Local police said they had reason to believe the teenager was with a man she’d met over the Internet. They issued a public appeal for help, noting the pair may be traveling in a blue, 2001 Ford Mustang.
Solano NewsNet later confirmed police were searching for Taylor Hauke, a 23-year-old security guard who lives with his parents at a home near Nut Tree Road and Arcadia Drive in Vacaville. No one answered the door when an editor visited his home, but a neighbor said the man looked familiar when showed a photo from one of his online profiles.
Authorities learned the teenager and Hauke had been communicating online after interviewing friends of the girl in Maine, some of whom told police that the pair had plans to elope, the source said.
Investigators contacted Hauke’s parents in California who told them that their son had informed them of plans to “go away on a trip for a few days,” but nothing beyond that, the source affirmed.
That information was enough for police to issue a bulletin to law enforcement officials in communities up and down Interstate 80, a major freeway that starts in California and ends in New Jersey.
Hours after launching a missing person investigation, police in Maine enlisted the help of federal authorities, a source told Solano NewsNet on Monday. That information was confirmed by investigators in Lewiston one day later.
Late Tuesday evening, two sources confirmed to Solano NewsNet that the girl was rescued by police in North Platte, Nebraska after she and Hauke stopped at a rest station along Interstate 80.
Hauke was arrested on two counts of child endangerment and abuse. He remains in custody in Lincoln County, Nebraska.
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