By Seamus McGraw

HERNANDO, MS (Crime Library) — For nearly three breathless days, investigators from an array of state and local agencies scoured the roads and side streets around Hernando, Mississippi in a desperate search for Ashley Ivy, a 16-year-old girl, who had, it seemed, been abducted while shopping for Christmas lights at a store not far from her home.

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The local media was alerted and even though the young girl's disappearance didn't meet the state's stringent criteria for an official Amber Alert, an unofficial notification went out over the airwaves. Bonnie Ivy, the girl's frightened mother gave an emotional interview to a local television station pleading for her safe return. The woman detailed how anonymous callers had telephoned her Sunday, more than 24 hours after the girl's disappearance and told her ominously that she had been kidnapped. They said they were holding her for ransom and warned that they would slit the girl's throat if their demands were not met.

It was, for both authorities and the young girl's family, a terrifying ordeal.

But in the end, it was all for naught. According to John Champion, district attorney for the five-county 17^th District that encompasses Hernando, Ashley Ivy was found about 10:30 p.m. Monday holed up in a house in Hernando with several other teens and young adults. At least one of the people in the house was a friend of Ashley's, authorities said. A tip, called in by a citizen who had heard the reports of the missing girl and spotted her in a local house, led to her recovery, authorities said.

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