Crime & Safety
UPDATE: Mom Thinks Registered Sex Offender 'Brainwashed' Daughter
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Updated at 11:59 p.m.:
A 36-year-old registered sex offender turned himself into police Monday after he learned the FBI and authorities in Michigan were looking for him.
Timothy Allen Fulgenzi was arrested at a Subway restaurant in Lebanon, TN, after he initially told police he wasn’t with Shelby Grech,15, of Center Line, The Detroit News reports.
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“We received a call from Mr. Fulgenzi. Apparently he had learned maybe via social media that the police were looking for him so he contacted our detective who was in charge of the case,” Matt Koehn, the assistant chief of police in Farmington Hills, told the newspaper.
Fulgenzi is the boyfriend of Grech’s biological mother, according to Teresa Texas, the teen’s biological great aunt and adoptive mother since she Grech was 5 months old.
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Texas and her husband plan to drive to Tennessee Tuesday to pick up their daughter, who is being interviewed by authorities there.
“I wouldn’t wish this on any parent,” Texas told the newsaper. “The relief that my husband, Michael, and I felt after learning she was found and that she was safe is indescribable. And we just can’t wait to go get her.”
Grech and Fulgenzi were last seen together at the Knights Inn in Farmington Hills about 8 p.m. Saturday. Texas said she tried to stop Grech from seeing Fulgenzi after learning she developed an “infatuation” with him, but she learned Saturday the two planned to run away together to get married.
Texas said she and other family members believe Fulgenzi ‘brainwashed” Grech.
Police are holding him for violating the terms of the sex offender registry.
In 2001, he was convicted of a fourth-degree sex offense in Florida that involved an underage girl, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Texas said she hopes police put Fulgenzi away.
“If this man doesn’t go behind bars for the rest of his life, there is something seriously wrong with our judicial system,” she said.
Updated at 4:30 p.m.:
Investigators located Shelby Grech and Timothy Fulgenzi in Lebanon, TN, Monday, Farmington Hills police said.
Grech was safely recovered and Fulgenzi is in custody, the police department said.
Our earlier report:
The Farmington Hills Police Department, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are attempting to locate Shelby Louise Grech, a 15-year-old white female resident of Centerline, last seen a motel in the company of a man police say is a convicted sex offender who is not compliant with the Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry.
Grech is 5 feet, five inches tall; weighs 150 pounds; and has green eyes and straight shoulder-length brown hair. She has gauges in both ears, and was last seen wearing black shorts, a cream-colored shirt and pink sandals. She was carrying a knitted cream-colored purse and a “Bob Marley” backpack
Grech was last seen leaving the Knights Inn located in the Grand River and 10 Mile area of Farmington Hills at approximately 8 p.m. on Saturday, She is believed to be in the company of an acquaintance of her mother’s, Timothy Allen Fulgenzi, 36,of Farmington Hills.
He is described as 5 feet, 10 inches tall, 190 pounds, and has brown eyes, a shaved head, brown goatee and a mustache. He has tattoos on both shoulders and was last seen wearing a black sleeveless shirt, blue jean shorts, and brown work boots
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Farmington Hills Police Department Command Desk at 248-871-2610 or the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 313-965-2323.
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Pictures of the teen and the suspect provided by Farmington Hills Police
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