Police: Teen abducted from Georgia home found alive

Police: 2 men broke into home, shot family dog, took 14-year-old Ayvani Perez

Ayvani Perez

ELLENWOOD, Ga. – A suburban Atlanta police chief says a 14-year-old girl has been found alive, more than a day after she was abducted from her family's home during a robbery.

Clayton County Police Chief Gregory Porter says Ayvani Hope Perez has been found safe in Conyers, outside Atlanta, and reunited with her family. He also says two suspects are in custody.
    
Federal, state and local officials had searched around the clock for Perez. She was taken from her home around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday by two men who had demanded money and jewelry. The burglars also shot and killed the family's dog.
    
Police say the girl's mother tried to hide the teen and her 15-year-old brother, but the armed men found them in the house.

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The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation assisted Clayton County police in the massive search for the teen.
    
Clayton County police Officer Phong Nguyen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the home invasion was apparently random.

"It didn't appear that they knew each other," he said of the suspects and victims. "They just moved in about a month ago."
   
The crime happened on a cul-de-sac in Ellenwood, a small community about 10 miles southeast of Atlanta, police said. The subdivision of two-story homes is on the northern edge of Clayton County, just south of the DeKalb County line.

Tuesday evening, more than 150 people gathered in a circle and held hands in prayer at the candlelight vigil at Dutchtown High School in Hampton, the Atlanta newspaper reported. Many teens there -- holding posters with Ayvani's name and pictures of them with her -- were her classmates at the school.