Emmarae, 14, vanished from outside the family’s Long Island home on December 9 after getting into an unknown car. Her father refused to sit and wait. He posted video updates every day, helped organize community search parties, and chased down every tip that came in, passing each one to detectives.
Then, on January 3, came the call he almost didn’t believe: his daughter was on a boat in Islip, 13 miles from home.
Frank drove straight there, phoning police on the way. Then he boarded the 56-foot yacht himself. Below deck he found Emmarae, dazed but alive, and wrapped his arms around his little girl for the first time in nearly a month. When he texted detectives that he had her, a SWAT team descended on the marina.
What Frank uncovered didn’t end on that boat. His rescue cracked open an investigation into a child tr*fficking operation, and eight people have since been arrested on charges including k*dnapping and s*x trfficking, among them the yacht’s owner, who court records say had planned to move Emmarae out of state before the arrests. Her father had found her just in time.
Emmarae was taken somewhere safe to begin recovering. “She’s safe and getting the help she needs,” Frank said. “I believe it was persistency that helped bring her home.” Twenty-six days of it, from a dad who was never going to stop
