Nearly a year later, some $47,000 in reward money for information leading to Barnes’ arrest and/or conviction offered by the FBI, the city of Philadelphia, and other entities remains unpaid.
Among those who contributed to Barnes’ capture is Henrico County schoolteacher Martin Johnston, who saw video of the Nov. 2 Philadelphia abduction on television and suggested that case involved the same person who had abducted the teenager in Richmond a month earlier.
Johnston believes he is due some of the reward money, as does a Philadelphia man who twice called police when he witnessed the abduction. Freeland-Gaither herself left behind her cellphone when she first was attacked, hoping it would reveal that she had been abducted.
