UPDATE: OAK HILL, WV (WOAY) – West Virginia State Police has confirmed that Steven Martin Lawson and Jalesa Dashea Bass, the two suspects in the case of a missing Oak Hill teenager, have been arrested.
According to Sgt. Jim Mitchell, Azareyiah Mitchell, the 17-year-old girl from Oak Hill, is still missing.
Lawson and Bass were arrested in Georgia on Friday for unrelated charges. Sgt. Mitchell could not comment any further on the details of the ongoing investigation, but he did say the two are still persons of interest.
Mitchell was reported missing on September 30.
—-
ORIGINAL STORY.
BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – A missing 17-year-old girl from Oak Hill has still not been found.
West Virginia State Police have identified two people that Azareyiah Majestic Mitchell was believed to have been with when she was reported missing on September 30.
Steven Martin Lawson, 26, is the boyfriend of the juvenile and Jalesea Dashea Bass, 19, was also reportedly with the two of them at the time she was reported missing.
The State Police enlisted the help of the U.S. Marshals Service at the beginning of the week to help with the investigation.
“And the state police and the Marshals Service, we’ve been working very closely together every day 24 hours a day in trying to resolve this case in a very positive way,” Sgt. Jim Mitchell, with the Oak Hill detachment, said.
It has been almost two weeks now since Angie Mitchell, Azareyiah’s mother, has seen or heard from her daughter and she is pleading with anyone with information to come forward.
“Please somebody just help me find my baby,” Angie Mitchell said. “That’s all I want. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to know my baby is safe.”
They have been focusing their search on Summers, Fayette and Raleigh Counties. The U.S. Marshals Service and Crime Stoppers have put out a $7,500 reward for anyone with information that will lead to her whereabouts.
“Azareyiah is not only the Mitchells’ child. She’s our country’s child. She’s our child, her and all the other children out there that are missing, and we need to do everything in our power to find these children and bring them back regardless of why they’re missing,” U.S. Marshal Michael Bayless said.
If you have any information, you can call West Virginia State Police at (304) 256-6700 or you can use the P3 app through Crime Stoppers or the USMS Tips App. With both of these apps, you can submit anonymously.
“That’s all I ask is for y’all to just come forward if you know anything that will help us, thank you.” ,” Laron Mitchell, Azareyiah’s father, said.
State police say numerous leads have been followed and the investigation is ongoing.
