Thurston County Sheriff’s Office
A high-school football player in Washington state who vanished on his way to practice last week is now accused of staging his own disappearance to evade charges for murdering a 51-year-old man.
Gabriel Davies, a 16-year-old student at Olympia High School, appeared in court Tuesday for the first time since the whole bizarre saga began last Wednesday, when frantic search efforts were launched to find him after he failed to make it to football practice. Many feared the worst after police revealed his car had been found abandoned, with blood inside, and his shattered cellphone on the ground nearby.
Then, in a dizzying turn of events, police announced Davies had been safely found late Thursday—but just hours later he was locked up on suspicion of murder.