Missing Atlanta teen was hidden in plain sight in Georgia suburb for four years

Tami Chappell/REUTERS The home where a 13-year-old boy who reportedly has been missing for four years, was located by police hidden behind a false wall in a closet in the home is pictured in Jonesboro, Georgia.

Police found Gregory Jean Jr hidden behind a false wall, a captive in his fathers house, but for four years he had been in plain sight, an abused child growing up in a Georgia suburb. And still he remained invisible.

Police did not search because they did not know he was missing. Child services reportedly knew but were unsure where to look. His school in Atlanta knew something was not right, but lost track after his father and stepmother withdrew Gregory, supposedly for home schooling.

It was the price of life on the margins. His father, Gregory Jean Sr, and stepmother, Samantha Davis, allegedly kept him to avoid paying child support to his biological mother, Lisa Smith.

Smith, 38, believed to be an immigrant from Haiti, lived some 400 miles south in Florida. She alerted child services but did not notify police, possibly because she was afraid to do so.

Gregory said he was beaten with a stick, humiliated, forced to work as a maid, banned from celebrating Christmas, and isolated from his alleged captor family and the wider world.

A Cinderella, said some. But in a twist that could have been scripted by Mark Zuckerberg, the 13-year-old orchestrated his escape not by shimmying down a drainpipe or appealing to a neighbour, but by sending his mother a Facebook friend request, triggering the police search that eventually found him.

It was not straightforward: Gregory had to connect a cell phone without a service provider to a wifi network, then download an app that enabled calls via wifi. I just went on [Google] Play Store and I downloaded an app called Magic Jack and I called my mom, he later told reporters. He sent the address and picture of the house in Clayton county, near Atlanta.

Police visited last Friday but left after Gregorys father and stepmother said they had not seen him in years and suggested he was in New York.

There was a lot of deception, Clayton county police sergeant Joanne Southerland told a press conference later. They denied, but no physical obstruction.

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Missing Atlanta teen was hidden in plain sight in Georgia suburb for four years