Aleah Beckerle has now been missing close to two weeks, and the mother of the special needs teenager has a message for her likely abductor — “How dare you.”

As the hunt for the missing teenager stretches on with no signs of her whereabouts, the search is growing desperate and family members are making a public plea for whomever abducted Aleah to bring her home safely. The 19-year-old went missing from her Evansville, Indiana home on July 17. Aleah’s mother said she woke in the morning to find that the girl was gone.

Aleah was likely taken in the middle of her night with her family members still inside the home, Evansville police detective Brent Melton told The Huffington Post. Police have not yet said if there is a suspect in mind.

Cara Beckerle, the girl’s mother, is begging for whomever took Aleah to bring her back home safely.

“How dare you take her out of her home. Why would you do this? Why would you take a child that depends on me? Why would you want to hurt me, my child and my family? I’m begging for you to return her,” she told The Huffington Post.

The effort to find Aleah Beckerle is spreading across the Evansville area as well. On Saturday, dozens of volunteers are expected to gather for a search of the area, the TriStateHomepage.com noted. The search is organized by Texas EquuSearch, an organization that leads efforts to find missing people.

Aleah could be in serious danger, police and family members say. The missing teen had suffered a stroke as an infant, leaving her with severe disabilities and in need of constant care, NBC News noted. Aleah is bound to a wheelchair and is in need of daily medication to prevent seizures — a medicine that Aleah’s mother said was left behind when the girl was abducted.

Aleah’s story gained some national attention this week when it was featured on NBC’s Dateline, and it has gotten the attention of other national news outlets. Many others have shared information about Aleah’s disappearance on Twitter. There is also a Facebook page dedicated to her search, Looking For Aleah Beckerle.

Police have made public pleas to the community, asking for anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts to come forward.

“There is someone out there who knows where Aleah is,” Evansville Police Department Captain Andy Chandler told Dateline. “You can’t just carry a disabled 19-year-old out of her home and have no one see anything.”

The circumstances of Aleah’s disappearance are still unclear. Police said the family’s home was left unlocked, and the girl’s mother said she could have been simply carried out of the home in the middle of the night.

“I’m 5’2, 170 pounds and I can put my daughter over my shoulder,” Beckerle said. “She’s dead weight. She can kind of sit up a little bit, but only for so long. Somebody can pick her up, put her over their shoulder and walk out. If she’s disturbed in the middle of the night, she’s not going to scream or anything.”

There is added urgency to the search given Aleah’s condition. The teenager is in need of special care, with her mother saying that Aleah cannot feed herself and usually needs specially-prepared food. She drinks from a bottle and wears a diaper, flyers for the missing girl noted. Aleah is also in need of her seizure medication, her mother added.

Anyone with information about Aleah Beckerle is asked to call the Evansville Police Department at (812) 436-7896, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) 843-5678, or Texas EquuSearch at (281) 309-9500.



[Image via Evansville Police Department]