MARION COUNTY, Fla. — The Marion County Sheriff’s Office arrested a teenager earlier this week after an alleged abduction hoax.
According to MCSO, 17-year-old Caden Speight faked his own kidnapping after calling family members and telling them he had been shot on Sept. 25.
Investigators quickly sprang into action and began processing the supposed crime scene, finding a bullet hole in the truck Speight had been traveling in, suspected blood, his “severely damaged” cell phone, drag marks leading away from the truck and bicycle tracks.
Through investigative means and after speaking to witnesses, deputies determined that Speight had fired a shot through the windshield of the truck, splattered blood inside the truck and destroyed his cell phone before taking off from the scene with camping supplies that he had purchased at a nearby Walmart just before reporting the alleged shooting.
Investigators also discovered that Speight had made internet searches about collecting blood without causing pain and on Mexican cartels.
Officers with the Williston Police Department located Speight after responding to a call the following day. He was found with a gun and bicycle, police said, and had shot himself in the leg in an attempt to “continue the ruse.”
Authorities charged Speight with making a false report of a crime, possession of a firearm by a minor, shooting into a conveyance and presenting false evidence.
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