The mother of a Miramar teenager who has been missing for five days issued a plea Monday to her daughter to do whatever her captors, if there are any, want her to do – and reiterated that her family loves her.
Sharon Leiba said her daughter Naketa Leiba, 17, is "not a runaway."
"If she is watching this, just do whatever they want you to do, and if the person who have her is watching this, please know that she has family that love her," Sharon Leiba told NBC Miami.
Naketa Leiba called her mother to pick her up from her bus stop near the 6800 block of SW 34th Street last Wednesday afternoon, about a mile away from home, but her mom couldn’t and asked her to walk.
"When she called me, we're still on a lockdown – there's no way I could leave the building," she said. "There's no one, in no one out, or else I would be there to pick up my baby."
She said Friday that when she called her daughter at about 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, she said, "'Oh, Mom, I'm on the way.' And when I heard 'on the way,' I heard a crackle or something and then her phone went dead."
Family members, friends and volunteers spent much of Sunday searching for the girl and handing out fliers.
A Facebook page was also created to help in the search.
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Miramar Police said Monday that they, aided by the FBI, have spent "hundreds of hours investigating her disappearance. While the police department has received leads that have been investigated, Leiba has not been located."
Police said Naketa Leiba is 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 135 pounds, and was last seen wearing a red Abercrombie short-sleeve shirt and blue jeans. She has short black hair.
Naketa Leiba interviewed for a sales clerk job in Aventura last Tuesday, her mother said.
Making the case that her daughter did not run away, Sharon Leiba said: "Take all the facts, you come to the home and you check her room and you see that there's nothing missing, you check her phone, you check her Twitter and her tweet said I'm on the way home."
"I've not been sleeping, I've not been eating because I cannot eat not knowing what my baby's eating," she said.
Her father, Michael Leiba, senses trouble but remains optimistic.
"We're just going to pray, and she's going to come home because I know someone is holding her against her will," he said.
Police ask anyone with information on Naketa Leiba's whereabouts to call them at 954-602-4000.
