Missing Ohio Girl Found Living With Her Teacher 263 Days After Vanishing
An Ohio schoolgirl has been found alive and residing at the home of a former teacher, close on nine months after disappearing. According to reports, the 17-year-old girl had been missing for 263 days after running away from the Huckleberry House crisis shelter in Columbus, Ohio on December 2, 2025.
In the months following her vanishing, her family are said to have repeatedly implored police to look into 48-year-old Jobe Binkley, a former science teacher within the Springfield City School District.
Reports claim Binkley had been the 17-year-old girl’s teacher, while Chelsi Warner, mother of the victim’s half-sister, told the NY Post that Binkley had groomed the teen when they had met at the school two years ago.
Warner also said that the teen had run away to Binkley’s house last year, before her disappearance.
“She’s had a troubled history with her mother and this groomer took advantage of a girl looking for a parental figure,” said Warner.
She added: “It’s absolutely disgusting … and she’s so groomed and brainwashed by that man that she doesn’t see what he’s done to her.
“We had photos of her in the house holding guns, and we know about the allegations from other students against this man, but we were always told there’s not enough evidence yet.”
Binkley denied police entry to his home twice during the search for the teen. As per ABC Six, a US Marshals’ special task force ultimately forced entry to the property on August 21, where they found the 17-year-old alive and unharmed.
The former science teacher was arrested and charged with one count of interference with custody, a first-degree misdemeanor.
He pleaded not guilty, with the prosecutor revealing that Binkley couldn’t be charged with a more serious crime without the teen’s cooperation.
Reportedly, this is not the first instance of Binkley being accused of forming inappropriate relationships with students. In January 2025, the teacher was fired from Springfield City School for allegedly breaching the school’s technology policy.
Finding the teenager alive ended one part of the family’s uncertainty, but the account describes other questions that remained unresolved. Warner’s comments focus on the circumstances that preceded the disappearance and on the concerns relatives say they raised during the search. Her statements are allegations attributed to her, rather than a replacement for the charge actually brought against Binkley.
The distinction between the family’s accusations and the legal proceedings matters. The account identifies a single charge of interference with custody and says Binkley pleaded not guilty. It also attributes the explanation about the limits of a more serious charge to the prosecutor. Those details should remain separate from the broader concerns described by relatives, even when the emotional reaction to the discovery is strong.
The sequence is equally important: the disappearance from the shelter, months of searching, the reported refusals of entry, and the task force’s eventual discovery of the girl at the property. Being found alive and unharmed answers the immediate question of her whereabouts. It does not, on its own, resolve the family’s concerns about the relationship or determine the outcome of the criminal case. The account leaves that outcome open.