A developmentally disabled Athens woman who sparked a search when she went missing in western Athens-Clarke County on Friday was later found in North Carolina.
Aimee Lester, 24, was in the company of a man she had met online and came to Athens to pick her up.
"Somehow he got wind that we had put out a BOLO for her and he contacted our dispatch to say that she was with him and she was okay," said Lt. Jeff Clark of the Athens-Clarke County police Criminal Investigations Division.
Arrangements were made with police in Durham, N.C. to take Lester in protective custody and officers in a marked Athens-Clarke County police car were en route to meet Durham authorities in Charlotte to drive Lester home, Clark said early Friday afternoon.
The man who had come to Athens to get Lester was not charged as there was no criminal intent on his part, according to Clark.
The drama began at about 1:30 a.m., when police issued a public lookout for Lester, who had been last seen an hour earlier walking from the area of Hidden Cove Drive and Fowler Mill Road.
Authorities expressed concern for Lester's welfare, saying she had the mind of a 10-year-old child.
Police officers and firefighters initially focused search efforts in the western-most part of the county, and the search later spread to the adjoining counties of Oconee and Jackson with the Georgia State Patrol looking for the woman from the air in a helicopter.
The lookout was canceled at 10:48 a.m., after authorities confirmed that Lester was in protective custody.
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