FCSO: Woman Misled Detectives During Search For Missing Teen

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Palm Coast, FL - The mysterious disappearance of a Palm Coast teenager nearly a year ago takes another strange turn, days after she finally turned up safe and sound in the South Florida area.

Kindra Dixon - the 39-year-old woman who the Flagler County Sheriff's Office said was one of the last people to see Samantha Posella alive last October - is now in handcuffs, charged with custodial interference and giving detectives false information that left the agency spinning its wheels for eight months.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly says Dixon bought Posella - who was 17 years old at the time but is 18 now - a cell phone after running away from her father's Llama Trail home in October 2017 and then told several lies to law enforcement about that phone during questioning.

“Kindra claimed to believe that she was helping to protect Samantha from abuse,” Staly added. "Yet she made no effort to contact the Florida Department of Children and Families, there is no record of her contacting the national runaway hotlines as she claimed she had and she never called law enforcement to express concerns for abuse."

That false information, according to Staly, made finding Posella more difficult, part of the reason why he plans to bill Dixon for the full investigative costs in the case. That totals out to $4,114.

"There are systems in place to protect juveniles from abuse and she utilized none of them," Staly noted. "Instead, she spent eight months deceiving law enforcement, wasting taxpayer dollars for an unnecessary investigation and keeping Samantha’s parents from knowing if their daughter was even alive.”

According to FCSO, Dixon was given the chance to come clean on the matter without fear of criminal prosecution after Posella became of legal age and still wouldn't tell them the truth. That's why FCSO says Dixon and another man were being considered persons of interest in Posella's disappearance, one that investigators feared was a murder until Posella revealed herself to a police officer last week after FCSO sent out another public request for help in the case.

As of this afternoon, Dixon is held on $3,000 bond at Flagler County Jail.