Girl Taunted Mom She'd 'Get Kidnapped'

March 18 -- Miranda Gaddis was so upset with the attention focused on her friend Ashley Pond when the girl disappeared almost three months ago, she told her mother, "I'm gonna go … get kidnapped." To her mother's horror, that's what happened.

Michelle Duffey last saw her daughter Miranda on March 8, when she was eating breakfast in her bathrobe. According to Duffey, she reminded Miranda to lock the apartment door when she left for school, and then left for work. She has not seen Miranda since.

When Ashley disappeared, Miranda became angry with her friend for causing so much turmoil, Duffey said. The girl watched as sheriff's deputies on horseback combed the woods near their Oregon City, Ore., apartment complex, her mother said.

At the time, Duffey wasn't so sure that Ashley was a runaway. She recalled telling Miranda she could not walk alone to a friend's house. Duffey said Miranda would try to provoke her by saying, "I'm gonna go alone, and get kidnapped."

The FBI has made the case a priority. The agency brought in about 70 FBI agents and support staff last week to the working-class apartment complex tucked into a forested valley south of Portland.

Agents have brought in dogs to search the woods around the apartment complex, and stopped cars in the neighborhoods to hand out posters carrying the missing girls' pictures.

But hundreds of hours of police work have turned up no trace of the teens.

‘Good Progress,’ FBI Says

In each case, authorities first mulled the possibility the girls ran away. But the FBI, local authorities and relatives now believe all of the evidence points to a crime.

Miranda did her homework the evening before she vanished. She told her mother she was looking forward to a dance team competition the following day at Gardiner Middle School. She did not pack any clothes or any of her makeup.

The FBI announced Saturday that they have received more than 500 leads for Ashley and Miranda from its tip line, but so far, nothing has led them to the girls.