Press Conference
28th July.
LE - I want to give you an update on an Amber Alert that we put out just recently. We put out the Amber Alert because are looking for an 11 yr. old girl. We are looking for BF-S, she's 11 yrs. old. We believe that she may be in the company of Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz.
Two weeks ago her father, the father of the 11 yr. old, discovered what he thought was a building relationship with the suspect Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz and his 11 yr. old daughter. They were both working in a farm up the North End of the County.
This morning her father discovered that she was missing. A screen was cut and a note was discovered. That note indicated that she would be in the company of Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz. Ortiz is an undocumented worker, so this is the best picture that we have of him. On my right you will see the latest picture we have of Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz who is a 42 yr. old male.
On the left we have a picture of the victim, the individual that we're looking for. Her name is BF-S and she is 11 yrs. old.
<modsnip - photo of minor victim redacted>
We do believe that, at this point, that they are out of town and they be in either Atlanta or Laredo.
We have sent this information to the FBI, who we are working with. We have sent this to Lamar for the billboards and the billboards will be up throughout the South East. We're also working with FDLE and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. As I said before, 2 weeks ago there was a building relationship between the 42 yr. old and the 11 yr. old. This morning the 11 yr. old is missing and what the father discovered was a note. That note seemed to indicate that these two are together. Again, he is 42, she is 11. We are very concerned about her and an Amber Alert has been issued. We do not yet have a vehicle identification, but we want to make sure that we get the nformation out. We are looking for an 11 yr. old, she's 11 yrs. old and her name is BF-S. We are very concerned about her, and we are also looking for Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz. We are concerned about where he is, he is 42 yrs. old and we do believe, at this time, that he is in the company of BF-S. That's why they have an Amber Alert and that's why we're working with our federal authorities. We are working with our state partners and we want to make sure that everyone understands who we're looking for, why we're looking for them and how urgent it is for us to find her. And that's all the information we have right now, we will continue to update you when we get more and more information.
Reporter - Can you tell us more on the suspect and the victim? You said that it was a building relationship?
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LE - I can tell you that the victim and the 42 yr. old suspect were both working at a farm in the North End of Escambia County. While they were working, her father noticed what he thought was a building or a grooming type of situation taking place. He fired Brijido Manriquez-Ortiz right away and he took him to Atlanta. This was about 2 weeks ago, so they haven't heard anything from him in about 2 weeks, until this morning. This morning the father discovers that his daughter is gone. The father discovers that the window had been cut, the window screen had been cut and the father also discovers a note. And in that note, presumably from the 11 yr. old BF-S, indicates that she would be with this individual. That's why we believe that's what's taking place, that's why we want to get the information out as soon as we possibly can. We are very worried about her.
Reporter - Any criminal history with Mr. Ortiz?
LE - I know that he is an undocumented worker and that's why, again, this picture that you have here is from a FB picture. That's the only picture that we have, it's the only one we can come up with. He doesn't look 42 in the picture here, but we hope that if anyone sees someone similar to him and someone, obviously, similar to our 11 yr. old victim, that they would call us, they would call authorities. They can call 911 no matter where they're at, no matter what state they're in, they can call 911 and we can have authorities there immediately.
Reporter - Do you have any information about any past criminal history that could lead you to believe certain charges or allegations in the past, ones that have involved children?
LE - This is too early in the investigation. As you can imagine, we want to get the information out as quickly as we possibly can. We got the report this morning, we immediately started working on the Amber Alert and now we're doing the press conference to make sure that we flood the airways, we make sure that we get the information on the billboards, but because of that we're still working on some of this stuff. We don't have a complete rundown on him yet, we just want to make sure that people understood who we're looking for and why we're looking for him.
Reporter - Now you mention that Mr. Ortiz was grooming BF-S for something - Can you go into what that means and what he was grooming her for?
LE - Well I can tell you that the father was concerned because he saw them in a kissing situation and he immediately thought that's inappropriate and he was right. And he fired him and he actually drove him to Atlanta and then he drove back to continue the work that they were doing. This morning, obviously, things changed a bit and now we're concerned and we're looking for, and we have broadcast information on BF-S. Again, she's 11, she's 11 yrs. old and he is 42 yrs. old. We're very concerned. Again, we don't know if they're in Atlanta, we don't know if they're in Laredo, we don't know what his intent is. We don't know if his intent is to stay in the States to try to get to Mexico. We want to get this information out as quick as we possibly can. So all the information that we know, and we hoped that you would broadcast this, we hoped that you would let people know who we're looking for and why we're looking for them because we are, as I said before, very concerned, very concerned about the 11 yr. old victim in this situation. We have no idea what he wants to do with her and if you're listening 'You're 42, she's 11 yrs. old - Return her, the family wants her returned. Please return her'.
With that we will update you with as often as we can, as much information we can provide, we will do so. Some of it maybe just in follow ups on our social media platform and some of it we will have a press conference like we did here.
