Missing North Carolina girl's alleged captor held in Georgia

By Rich McKay
Michael Ren Wysolovski, 31, charged in connection to the disappearance of a North Carolina teenager found alive over the weekend in Duluth, Georgia, after she had been missing for more than a year, according to authorities, is shown in this book photo provided June 26, 2017. Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department/Handout via REUTERS

By Rich McKay

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (Reuters) - A Georgia man was ordered on Monday to remain in jail on charges related to the disappearance of a North Carolina teenager found alive over the weekend after she had been missing for more than a year.

Hailey Burns, now 17, disappeared from her home in Charlotte about 13 months ago. After authorities received a tip late Saturday regarding her possible whereabouts, they found her being held at a house in Duluth, Georgia, about 25 miles north of Atlanta, FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch said on Monday.

"Agents from the local office and Gwinnett County police went out to the location and took the suspect in custody without trouble," Lynch said in a phone interview.

The suspect, Michael Ren Wysolovski, 31, appeared in court in Lawrenceville on Monday on local charges of false imprisonment, aggravated sodomy, interference with custody and cruelty to children.

Magistrate Judge Jane McKinney appointed Wysolovski a lawyer and ordered him to stay in jail without bail. The lawyer was not in court and did not immediately comment by phone.

Authorities have not released further details about the case.

Neighbors told local media they rarely saw the teenager at the well-kept home, and neither she nor the man there ever spoke to them.

Burns' parents told WSOC-TV in Charlotte that their daughter met Wysolovski online, and he apparently drove to North Carolina to meet her.

"(He) got her in the car, brought her straight to his house and she pretty much had to stay there the whole time," the mother Shaunna Burns told the TV station.

Shaunna Burns said the tip that led to the girl's rescue came from a woman in Romania, whom their daughter also met online and told she was missing. Within hours, the woman reached out to the parents.

The teen's parents, who in the past told local media they woke up on May 23, 2016, to find their front door unlocked and Hailey gone, posted jubilant messages on Facebook after she was found safe.

"We never gave up," the father Anthony Burns wrote. "She is happy and grateful to be home. We can now breathe again."

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Bernard Orr)