Missing 11-year-old Sophie Long found in foreign country

Father faces felony charge of interference with child custody

Texas girl Sophie Long, 11, has been found safe in an undisclosed foreign country after going missing in July.

US authorities found her with her father, Michael Long, who was taken into custody. He had refused to hand over Sophie to her maternal aunt amid a custody dispute.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office was trying to have Sophie flown back to the US on Saturday. While law enforcement officials didn’t say where she was when she was found, authorities have previously said that Mr Long might have been travelling towards Mexico or Argentina along with his daughter.

“Many months of determined work by my deputies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals paid off this morning,” Sheriff Jim Skinner said in a statement on Saturday. “We are so happy Sophie is safe.”

Mr Long faces a charge of interference with child custody, which is a felony, and will be extradited to the US, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The 11-year-old was the subject of a custody dispute between Mr Long, Sophie’s mother Kelly Long, and her aunt, whom she was sent to live with in May.

Sophie was last spotted on 12 July in Seguin, northeast of San Antonio. Mr Long, 43, was set to appear in court for a hearing in McKinney, Texas in August. He told DailyMail.com at the time that he would only return to court if he was allowed to have his case tried by a jury.

His 36-year-old ex-wife filed a motion in which she opposed a jury trial and asked that Mr Long be sent to prison for 18 months for hiding Sophie and refusing to hand her over.

Ms Long is also pushing for her ex-husband to be placed on probation for 10 years, that he be held on a $20,000 bond, and that he pay for all legal expenses.

In July, Mr Long was ordered to pay $20,000 for therapy for Ms Long, Sophie, and her two brothers.

“I’d absolutely go to jail to protect Sophie. I’d do anything for her. She’s a 10-year-old child,” Mr Long told DailyMail.com in August.

“She shouldn’t have to be dealing with this stuff. These high conflict custody cases, this wasn’t about getting into a custody case. This was about getting justice for my daughter,” he added.

“It turned into that because the system didn’t take action as they promised they would. People like to say this is a vendetta against my ex. No, it’s not,” Mr Long told the outlet.

“There’s no way I’m going to turn my back on her now,” he added.

Last year, police in Frisco, Texas received a large number of calls and emails concerning Sophie in part because of social media posts by people in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. Police said the posts were “patently false” and that Sophie was safe, The Dallas Morning News reported.