Florida detectives trying to find a girl who turned up in child-porn images online over the past three years went to North Carolina to find a nonexploited girl who might have been photographed by the same person.
Orange County, Fla., sheriff's detectives acted on a tip they got after they released a photograph they hoped would help identify the girl, according to news wire reports. She was said to have been seen in sexually explicit images taken at a Walt Disney World hotel and other locations.
That photograph turned out to feature a girl investigators do not believe was sexually exploited, the reports said, but the background in the photograph was thought to be similar to ones including the exploited girl in question, including views of furniture and exercise equipment.
But Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said the girl in the photo they released may be a material witness in the case, if that photo plus the exploited girl the detectives are trying to find were photographed by the same person.
"We are releasing the photograph of material witness," Beary told WKMG-TV news, "in hopes that if a citizen can identify her it will greatly increase the chances of successfully identifying the perpetrator and finding the victim."
