A New Jersey mom was arrested after her teenage son was reported missing — and then found two days later by police hiding in the suspect’s basement, officials said Monday.
Jennifer Buckley, a 48-year-old East Brunswick resident, was booked on suspicion of obstruction of administration of law, police said.
She was taken into custody at a little after 3:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, about 44 hours after her 17-year-old son had been reported missing, East Brunswick police Lt. Jason Fama said in a statement to NBC News on Monday.
The boy’s father called East Brunswick police at 7:47 p.m. on Tuesday reporting that the teen “was scheduled to be dropped off at his residence at approximately” 6 p.m. that day but never showed up, East Brunswick police said in a statement.
The boy’s mother “reported that her son was not at her residence” and “expressed concerns that her son may be a danger to himself,” police said.
The father, Matthew Buckley, said he was confident their son wasn’t in any danger and was staying with his ex-wife the whole time.
“Honestly, I wasn’t too worried,” Buckley, 50, told NBC News on Monday. “I knew she was pulling some BS like she always does.”
During their search for the boy, “detectives identified several discrepancies in the information they had obtained,” according to the police statement.
Another key piece of evidence, Matthew Buckley said, was Jennifer Buckley reaching out to the youngster’s school asking for records during that span of 44 hours.
“She had emailed the high school asking for some records and I thought that was fishy,” Matthew Buckley said. “If your kid’s missing, why are you going to email the high school about anything?”
Detectives returned to Jennifer Buckley’s “residence to conduct further investigation” on Thursday afternoon, police said, and that’s when they searched the house again “and located the juvenile hiding inside a crawl space in the basement,” police said.
Jennifer Buckley did not immediately answer several messages left at publicly listed phone numbers for the mother of two.
“Whenever a juvenile is reported missing, particularly when there are concerns for that child’s safety, our officers take the report seriously and commit the resources necessary to locate them,” East Brunswick Police Chief Frank LoSacco said in a statement.
“I commend the patrol officers, detectives, and other personnel who worked diligently to locate this juvenile and ensure his safety,” he said.
“Providing false or misleading information to law enforcement undermines those efforts and unnecessarily diverts officers and resources away from members of our community who may need immediate police assistance,” LoSacco said.
