FORT WORTH – A nationwide search for a missing 11-year-old Fort Worth girl and her mother ended Sunday when New Mexico police located them near a national forest, police said.
Jessica Smith and her mother, Kimberly Smith, 42, were located about 1 p.m. Sunday in their SUV nine miles south of Tres Piedras, N.M., near Carson National Forest, according to a Fort Worth Police Department news release.Authorities had been canvassing the state just hours after Jessica Smith was reported missing from her home in Fort Worth on Tuesday.The two, who were hungry and exhausted, were taken to a local hospital for medical attention.Jessica Smith did not appear to have any physical injuries, police said.Police expect to extradite Kimberly Smith back to Fort Worth on charges of aggravated assault and endangering a child. She is accused of committing acts of violence on her daughter."If not for the actions of the school officials, witnesses, reporting parties, along with the coordinated efforts of our law enforcement and media partners, this unfortunate, sensitive and complicated investigation would not have ended with such a positive outcome," said police Sgt. Pedro Criado in the news release.Police and representatives from the Tarrant County district attorney's office flew to New Mexico on Sunday night. Neither police nor the DA's office released further details.Relatives of Jessica Smith had told authorities that her mother is mentally ill and has threatened suicide and harm to her children, police have said.An Amber Alert was issued on Tuesday because Jessica Smith was taken from her home in far north Fort Worth by her mother, police said.The mother has custody of the daughter, and they both lived at the house in the 7300 block of Indiana Avenue.School officials called police on Tuesday when Jessica did not arrive for class, and they "expressed concern for Jessica’s well-being.Investigators went to the Smith house and learned that the previous evening, Kimberly and Jessica Smith were "involved in a domestic violence incident.""Smith placed Jessica in imminent danger of serious bodily injury," Criado has said, but the girl did not appear to be seriously injured.The next morning, family members told police, when they realized that Kimberly Smith and Jessica were not in the house, they assumed that Jessica had gone to school.Jessica's father, Phillip Monroe Smith, 36, is facing a charge of sexual abuse of a child under 14, police and court records show. He was arrested in October and released from jail after posting $100,000 bail.Phillip and Kimberly Smith are in the process of divorce. The family was ordered to undergo psychological evaluations, and the divorce case was referred to mediation, records show.(This report includes information from Star-Telegram archives.)Domingo Ramirez Jr., 817-390-7763; Twitter: @stcrime
