16-year-old left Missouri home weeks ago. Her dad is worried she's in danger.
Jaiden Treon's father has expressed frustration that law enforcement waited for weeks to publicize the news that his daughter was missing.
It's not the first time that Timmy Treon's daughter has run away, but as the days turn into weeks, his fears grow that the Missouri teen is in serious danger.
Taking a car that was her 16th birthday gift, Jaiden Treon left her home in the St. Louis suburb of Festus on June 22, Treon told Paste BN on Wednesday.
He said he now believes the teen is on foot and doesn't know anything about how she's getting by.
"We feel strongly someone's going to take advantage of her," Treon said.
That's why he's been relentlessly pressing Missouri law enforcement to make her case a priority. As far as he's concerned, they haven't.
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Sheriff's office: 'Jaiden's case is just as important'
On Wednesday, nearly two months after Jaiden left her home, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office shared an alert about the missing girl for the first time in a post on Facebook.
The brief post said that Jaiden may be in St. Charles or St. Louis counties, the city of St. Louis or in the state of Illinois. It directs people to call police with any information about her whereabouts.
The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request from Paste BN on Wednesday about why the case hasn't been publicized sooner. But in a post Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff's office said that this marks the sixth time that Jaiden has been reported missing after a GPS tracking device she was wearing was cut off and discarded in her room.
Still, the sheriff's office said that "Jaiden’s case is just as important as the other 23 missing persons cases we are investigating."
"We continue to follow leads, we do not have any intelligence (today) to suggest Jaiden is in danger," the office said. "Sixteen-year-olds that run away and get caught multiple times learn from their previous detentions, which makes finding them even more challenging."
Before the post was shared, Treon had told Paste BN he has "no idea" why weeks passed before the sheriff's office publicized the case but wonders if's because they consider his daughter "a habitual runaway."
"They seem to not want to invest much time into a lost cause," Treon said.
A father's fight
Meanwhile Treon has been posting information about his daughter on Facebook since she went missing, and asking members of the public to share it far and wide.
"She has no identification, only the clothes on her back, staying wherever with whomever," he wrote on July 31. "Somebody somewhere is going to be the HERO that finds her. Maybe that is YOU - please help us."
Jaiden is described as being white with black hair and hazel eyes.
Anyone with information about the girl's whereabouts can call the sheriff's office at 636-797-9999.
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Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for Paste BN. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com.