On Tuesday, Sept. 12, Ashland University’s Campus Shield app, which alerts students on situations and events on campus, released a statement that a young woman had gone missing near the campus and that students should be on the lookout.

The statement, which was released at 2:14 p.m. read, “Please be on the lookout for a missing 15-year-old girl. She is Caucasian and of medium build. She was last seen wearing a blue sweatshirt, black pants, and white shoes. She is not dangerous, but if seen please call 911 immediately.” Later that day, at roughly 8:20 p.m., the missing girl would be found by brothers of an AU fraternity, Kappa Sigma.

“This girl came out of the woods near the tennis courts covered head-to-toe in mud,” said Kappa Sigma President Caleb Shriver. “We didn’t know what was wrong or what was happening.”

On the night of Sept. 12, four brothers from the Kappa Sigma fraternity were out playing basketball with one another when a young girl came up to them and asked to use a phone to call her friends.

“She called roughly three people, and no one would pick up,” said Kappa Sigma brother Zach Balo. “We then asked her if she was okay, and she said her friends were playing a prank on her and left her in the woods.”

The girl would then go to tell the fraternity brothers that she was from Cincinnati and that she and her friends were in the area for a college visit.

“She told us that her friends left her here,” said Balo. “We then asked her why she was all muddy, and she told us that she had been hiding under a deck.”

Shriver and Balo, alongside the other two unnamed fraternity brothers, then went and grabbed the girl a drink of water to make sure she was okay. During that time, they also reached out to other members of the fraternity in hopes that they would potentially know something about the situation.

However, before anyone could reply, the girl began to explain what was going on.

“She said she had been on the run,” said Shriver. “She then went on to tell us she ran away from her group and was trying to get money to get back to Cincinnati.”

He then noted that the girl had nothing with her besides her clothes, no phone or identification.

For the fraternity brothers, things clicked that something was not right. 

Balo also started to connect the dots that the earlier Campus Shield alert about a missing person could be this girl. He then took note of the physical appearance of her, that matched the alert. 

While the fraternity brothers and the girl talked, Vice President of Kappa Sigma Ethan Thomas decided to place a call to the Ashland police. 

“While we talked to her, Ethan [Thomas] stepped out to call the police,” said Balo. “We then started to realize that the alert matched who was in front of us. I then asked her if she was wearing a blue hoodie at some point. To which she denied, but the other characteristics matched.”

At that point, though, Thomas had been on the phone long enough for the police to show up.

“The police walked in and said, ‘so, what is going on here,’ and she turned around and said, ‘arrest me’,” said Balo. “The police officer then said, ‘I need to know your name,’ but she kept telling them to arrest her and that it ‘is me.'”

After arriving and surveying the situation, the police would detain the missing girl. Once the fraternity brothers were no longer needed, they reflected on the situation and what had unfolded.

“We genuinely had thought she was hurt,” said Balo. “We were not sure if she had bruises or if she was hurt, so we instantly just wanted to help her. From the original story we were told by her, if it were true, we didn’t want her to have to sleep on the street for the night.”

Throughout recent decades, fraternities across America have been given negative connotations and stereotypes due to outlier events that have occurred in the past. For Shriver though, he wants to break the stigma. 

“It just shows that fraternity members are just like anyone else,” he said. “You don’t want anyone to be left like that or neglected. We wanted to find help for her.”

This story is still developing and The Collegian will update it as more information is provided.