Father of one of the Jasper County’s three missing teens asks for help in finding her

Grady Damron said he woke up Tuesday morning and knocked on the bedroom door of his 16-year-old daughter, April Damron, the same way he does every morning before he heads to work.

“I knock on their (his three kids) doors every morning and say, ‘I’m going to work, I love you,’” Damron said Saturday. “When I went to April’s door her door was locked.”

Damron said it was then that he realized April was missing from her Ridgeland home along with her computer and her cat.

April is one of three teens reported missing from Jasper County in a week.

“I don’t think she ran away,” Damron said. “I think she was lured out of the house. All of her clothes are still here. She took her cat and her laptop. She usually sits outside with her cat and her laptop.”

Jasper County Sheriff Chris Malphrus told the Jasper Sun Times a conflicting story. He said in the story he believed April had run away because she had before. Calls to Malphrus were unanswered Friday and Saturday morning.

Damron said that April was reported missing once before but she was found later that afternoon at a friends house. He said it wasn’t a runaway situation.

There hadn’t been any conflicts in the home or indication that April wanted to runaway before she went missing earlier this week, Damron said. He did say he believed it is possible she is with a man she knows from the area.

The Ridgeland Police Department reported Thursday that April could be in the company of a Billy Wheeler, 31. It stated Wheeler is driving a 1998 Ford F150 pickup bearing South Carolina tag number NFD-641.

The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office sent out a notice via Facebook on Thursday asking for the public’s help in finding April. The post also said April was last seen with Wheeler.

“I have looked for her everywhere,” Damron said. “I will find her, I trust the Lord.”

Damron is white with blue eyes, brown hair and weighs around 120 pounds. She is 5 feet, 9 inches tall.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts may call Detective Croft with the Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division at 843-726-7779 or Crime Stoppers at 800-446-1006.

Summer Nicole Jenkins and Natalie Walker also went missing from Jasper County this week according to releases on the county’s Facebook page.

Jenkins is described as an African-American who is around 5 feet, 9 inches tall with brown eyes, between 150 and 170 pounds, and black or possibly dyed hair.

Walker is described as an African-American who is 5 feet tall and around 110 pounds with brown eyes. She may have black or orange hair, according to a flyer posted on the Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page.

Walker is believed to be in the Jasper County or Savannah area.

The posts do not specify either Walker or Jenkins’ ages.

Anyone with information on Jenkins or Walker may contact Detective Wright of the Criminal Investigations Division at 843-726-7779, Crime Stoppers at 800-446-1006 or FBI Special Agent Van Epps at 912-790-3130.

This story was originally published June 24, 2017 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Father of one of the Jasper County’s three missing teens asks for help in finding her."