Skip to main content /US
CNN.com /US
CNN TV
SERVICES
CNN TV
EDITIONS

Search for Indiana principal, female student moves south

Gabrielle Marshall disappeared on Tuesday
Gabrielle Marshall disappeared on Tuesday  

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The search for an Indiana school principal wanted by federal agents for interstate travel with one of his female sixth-grade students is moving into the South, FBI officials said Friday.

Authorities are looking for William "Andy" Beith, 28, principal of Liberty Baptist Academy in Lake Station, Indiana. Both Beith and 11-year-old Gabrielle Grace Marshall disappeared Tuesday.

Marshall was reported missing after a Wal-Mart store employee told police the girl was crying and seen running in the store parking lot, according to The Associated Press. Her parents believed she may have telephoned Beith.

Officials Friday distributed photos of the pair, and said the two were believed to have been in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday, a day after they were spotted in Troy, Ohio. There was no new information on their whereabouts Friday, but authorities believed they were continuing to travel south.

Beith was charged Thursday night by federal authorities with coercing and enticing a minor, and transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity. Both charges carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison.

Officials said Beith had had "contact with the girl outside the school setting," but declined to provide the details contained in a still-secret criminal complaint.

Beith is charged with coercing and enticing a minor, and transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity
Beith is charged with coercing and enticing a minor, and transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity  

Beith is described as a white male, 5 feet 6 inches tall, 160 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Gabrielle is described as 4 feet 11 inches tall, 105 pounds, with a dark complexion, long brown hair and brown eyes.

Beith is driving a white 2000 Dodge Durango with Indiana license plate 245627L, the FBI says.

The FBI asks that anyone with information on the whereabouts of the two to call the FBI's Indianapolis office at (317) 639-3301.

According to The Associated Press, Beith was arrested in 1990, while still a teen-ager, and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl.

The news agency said Beith became principal of Liberty Baptist Academy in Lake Station, Indiana, in 1998 when his father, William S. Beith, resigned after being arrested for soliciting a male undercover police officer for oral sex.

Charges against both men were dismissed after they received counseling under a deferred prosecution program, Diane Poulton, a spokeswoman for the Lake County prosecutor, told The Associated Press.



RELATED STORIES:
Man convicted in kidnapping of 8-year-old
May 3, 2001
Man charged in Florida child kidnapping under suicide watch
March 16, 2000
Army's top enlisted man in Europe faces kidnapping, sodomy charges
October 23, 1999

RELATED SITES:
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.


 Search   


Back to the top