Jenelle Evans and her family luckily avoided a potentially very scary situation on Tuesday afternoon.
At about 2:30 pm local time in rural North Carolina, where the Teen Mom alum and her kids live, reports started coming in that Jenelle’s 14-year-old son Jace was missing.
The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Department rushed into action after Jace went unaccounted for after the school day, and marked him as a “runaway juvenile,” per TMZ. They immediately began searching for the boy around the area of his school and home. They also reported to the media that he was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt that read Classical Charter Schools of America on it with a navy blue polo shirt beneath.
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Thankfully, about an hour after he was first reported missing, Jace was spotted and reunited with his family.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Department confirmed with media outlets in eastern North Carolina that Jace was positively identified and returned to the home of Jenelle and David Eason. Now, that law enforcement agency and local police departments are not looking for Jace any longer.
Thank goodness!!
Then, not long after that good news on Tuesday afternoon, Jenelle released a statement to TMZ about Jace’s safe return. She said:
“As a boy mom, kids can act up and rebel as I’m sure the majority of us all once did as kids too. Jace, got in trouble at school, we decided to take his phone away and that’s when he decided to run off, Jace is a good kid and we’re not dealing with anything that most families don’t deal with while raising children.”
Oof. She makes a good point there. This happens to a lot of families, no doubt. Especially over things like teenagers having their phones taken away… We’re just glad it ended the way it did, with good news for all involved.
Then, the MTV alum added a reference to the ongoing situation with her husband David:
“This has absolutely nothing to do with my situation with David, we do not argue in front of our children or fight in front of our kids. This is a teenage boy being a teenager mad that we decided to take his phone away.”
That’s good to know. Strife at home is definitely a source for parent-teen rifts, so we just hope things really are the way Jenelle claims they are with that statement about not arguing in front of the kids.
Less than an hour later, Jenelle’s manager August Keen added more:
“Jace has been found, and is safely at home with Jenelle and his family, thank you to the Brunswick Co. Sheriff’s Department and to everyone else for their concerns.”
Whew!
FWIW, TMZ talked to Jace’s grandmother and Jenelle’s mother Barbara prior to the teen being located. She told the outlet that she had just talked to the teenager on Monday night, and there was no indication that anything was amiss at home.
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As Perezcious readers will no doubt recall, Barbara had custody of Jace until this March, when Jenelle finally got legal custody of the boy after a long battle following her previous inability to support him on her own.
We’re just glad everything seems to be OK now. Or, at least that Jace is safe and sound.
So scary!!
[Image via Candace Owens Podcast/YouTube/Jenelle Evans/Instagram]
