A 15-year-old girl who was the subject of a massive manhunt late last year will appear on Dr. Phil on Thursday to discuss her reported kidnapping — which she says wasn’t quite a kidnapping at all.
When Calah Waskow went missing this December, she was believed to have been abducted from her Evans, Georgia, home. Police launched a five-day-manhunt and issued an AMBER Alert before Waskow was found safe in a Tennessee candy store 200 miles away. She was with Jason Arlis Johnson, the 37-year-old father of her friend and Waskow’s suspected kidnapper. Johnson was arrested and charged with aggravated child molestation, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child molestation, and enticing a child for indecent purposes.
Now, Calah Waskow says her relationship with Johnson was consensual, and tells Dr. Phil in a preview of her upcoming appearance that she frequently skipped school in order to be with him:
Calah is expected to detail the origins of her relationship with Johnson in the episode. After meeting him through her friend, Calah says Johnson started to contact her.
“And then he just kept talking to me, like a really, really cool parent,” she says, according to Dr. Phil’s website. Soon after, the relationship “started to get flirty.”
Calah says Johnson convinced her to run away with him so they wouldn’t get into trouble.
Prior to his abuse of Waskow, Johnson had been charged with domestic violence and simple battery. He is also accused of supplying the 15-year-old with methamphetamines.
Photo: YouTube screenshot
