UPDATE: Missing Sacramento County Girl Found Safe
9:30 p.m. UPDATE: Lydia Ramirez has been found safe.
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SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Days before Christmas, a north Sacramento family is desperately looking for one of their children who went missing after school on Thursday.
Parents say school surveillance video shows Lydia Ramirez, 12, stepping into an unknown vehicle after jumping a fence at school.
Ramirez's parents say they are concerned for her safety and hope the community can help get her home.
Johnny and Kristen Watts are desperately looking for their daughter who went missing Thursday after jumping inside an unknown vehicle in front of her middle school.
"She holds us all together. You know, spending time with her little brother, they are like best friends. Her sisters are really tight, really close and that's her in a nutshell," said stepdad Johnny Watts.
On the same day she went missing, parents say they received disturbing messages on social media about their daughter.
"We got a bunch of really nasty messages and things like that about her, not being in Sacramento anymore and possible doing jobs in Reno and things like that and whatever that may mean," he said.
A spokesperson for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department could not comment if the incident is being investigated as a human trafficking case, but says they are not ruling anything out.
"There are many ways that human traffickers can lure people into those situations, one can be gifts, one can be seeking friendship or befriending that person and actually luring them into contact and then luring them into the lifestyle and then the human trafficking starts," said Shaun Hampton, a spokesperson for Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.
Ramirez's parents say she is a good student and a kind person. They are hoping the community can help bring her home.
"She was even talking about, how she made some improvements with some relationships with students at school and she was really happy about that. There was just absolutely no indicators that anything was about to happen," said Kristen Watts, Ramirez's mother.
Parents say Ramirez has been dealing with at least two family deaths. Investigators say any information on the girl's disappearance should be reported to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.
