Alexis Waller stole $10,000 from her grandmother and tried to take a taxi to Florida before police helped her family track her down

11-Year-Old Arkansas Girl Steals $10,000 from Grandma, Tries to Take a Cab to Florida

An 11-year-old girl in Arkansas is safely back at home after she woke up in the middle of the night on Dec. 5, stole $10,000 in cash from her grandma and called a taxi to drive her all the way Florida.

After Alexis Waller left her house around 3 a.m., she walked to a gas station down the block and then hitchhiked to Little Rock, Arkansas, which was about 30 minutes away.

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From there, a cab agreed to take her to Jacksonville (830 miles away), but only after she put down $1,300.

“The cab driver asked her if she had the money and she sure did,” Sergeant Todd Crowson tells PEOPLE. “After she gave it to him, she agreed to give him another $1,200 when she arrived.”

At about 9 a.m., her grandmother went to wake her up for school and couldn t find her.

“The grandmother found a note saying that she had run away to Montana,” says Crowson. “But she in fact had run off to Jacksonville, Florida.”

Although she was staying with her grandmother at the time, her parents found out right away that their daughter was missing.

“You always just think the worst,” Alexis’s father, Brent Waller, told KARK4 News. “I just thought some guy had come and scooped her up.”

After her family immediately called the Bryant police department, they were able to obtain her cell phone records and traced a call to a cab company.

“When the company got us on the phone with the driver, they were already just outside Atlanta, Georgia,” says Crowson. “She was able to get over seven hours away from home.”

Her parents then raced in their car to pick her up.

“You have the rest of your life to punish her. You just want to hug her and just love her because you got her back and that’s what’s important,” Waller said.

The police were told that she was going to Florida to meet a boy she had been in touch with ever since they met a couple of years ago on vacation.