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 Close ||||| A boy missing for four years was rescued after officers found him behind a linen closet in a hidden space between the garage and the attic. The boy's father, stepmother and their three teenage children have been arrested. VPC 
 
 Sgt. Joanne Southerland, of the Clayton County Police Department, insisted police return to the house. (Photo: WXIA-TV, Atlanta) 
 
 JONESBORO, Ga. — It was just past midnight Saturday when Clayton County Police Sgt. Joanne Southerland pulled back a piece of wood from the back of a linen closet and uncovered a hidden space between the garage and the attic. Inside, 13-year-old Gregory Jean Jr. huddled. 
 
 "We told him who we were, we told him we were there to help him," Southerland said. "When we finally got him calmed down he said, 'Thank you. Thank you.' " 
 
 Clayton County Police held a news conference Monday to answer questions about the case that's drawn intense national attention. 
 
 Police Chief Gregory Porter left many of the specifics unanswered, repeatedly saying he didn't want to damage the case against Gregory Jean Sr. and Samantha Joy Davis. Three teenagers, children of Davis, also were arrested early Saturday morning. 
 
 They face charges of false imprisonment, cruelty to children and obstruction of an officer, Porter said. 
 
 "The investigation is ongoing," said Porter. 
 
 “We weren't going to leave until we found him.” Sgt. Joanne Southerland, Clayton County (Ga.) Police Department 
 
 Police had received information that the child did not want to be there and had been physically abused. 
 
 Porter, Southerland and Officer Daniel Day focused on how they found Gregory. The boy's birth mother called 911 and told them her son was being held at the home against his will. When police went to investigate, his father and stepmother said they didn't know the child, and didn't know why police were coming to their home. They granted police access to search the home. Police found nothing. 
 
 Gregory was able to reach his mother again through a MagicJack app. She, again, called 911. When Southerland, who worked several years in the Crimes Against Children Unit, heard the specifics of that 911 call, she insisted they return to the house. 
 
 "We weren't going to leave until we found him," she said. 
 
 After police left following the first visit, the incident report says the boy "was thrown down the stairs and punched several times ... (causing) bleeding and lacerations around his mouth." The report says the boy was assaulted by a juvenile in the house at the direction of the boy's father, apparently in retribution for contacting his mother. 
 
 Thirty minutes later, using more specific information the boy was able to pass to his mother, they finally found the hidden compartment. The space included just wooden beams and insulation. 
 
 "A space where no person should be living," Porter said. He wouldn't go into specifics about how long and how often the boy was kept there, but there was a bedroom he shared at the home with the other children. 
 
 Porter wouldn't answer specific questions about why the mother had not contacted police earlier, calling it a "unique case." He did confirm Gregory was not officially listed as missing with any police agency. 
 
 On Sunday, a judge denied bond for Jean, 37, and Davis, 42. Davis is on probation for child cruelty. She's also accused of striking the boy with a stick across the back of his legs, back and buttocks. 
 
 "It concerns me as a police officer and a father," Porter said. 
 
 Court records show in 2004, Davis heated a pair of scissors on the stove and used them to burn her 6-year-old son on his neck and hand, before cutting off a piece of his tongue. She was ordered in 2006 to 10 years probation and anger management classes. 
 
 Police won't say whether the child at the center of that case was one of the three teenagers arrested at the house, but officers say they are all Davis' children. 
 
 Police say the 13-year-old found had been abused that night by both Davis and one of her children and he told police he had been physically punished in the past for trying to leave. 
 
 The missing boy's mother, Lisa Smith, says she did not know exactly where her son was located, and neither did the court in Allen County, Ind. The couple are defendants in a small claims case seeking $4,417 in unpaid rent. The case was filed in 2001, but efforts to find Jean and Smith continued, with filings as late as September of this year. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1y6yjTX ||||| JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) — A 13-year-old boy used text messages and photos to help lead police to the small compartment behind an upstairs linen closet where he was being hidden inside his father's and stepmother's home in the Atlanta suburbs, authorities said Monday. 
 
 Clayton County Police Chief Gregory Porter said the boy's biological mother, who lives in Orlando, Florida, called her local 911 and was routed to the 911 center in Jonesboro just before 11 p.m. Friday. She told police her son was being abused at a home in Jonesboro and was being hidden in a garage. Porter said the boy's mother told police he had been missing for four years, and she had been trying to reunite with him during that time. 
 
 Those details and others in the case emerged during a press conference at Clayton County Police headquarters. Police declined to say whose phone the boy used, how he knew to contact his mother or which parent had legal custody of the boy. Porter said he didn't want to compromise the investigation. 
 
 Two officers who responded initially couldn't find the boy after searching and shouting out for him inside the garage. They left, but were told to go back by a supervisor, Porter said. 
 
 As police resumed their search shortly after midnight, the boy used an app to send his mother text messages, including a photo of the home's garage according to the initial police report. She then passed those updates to police, who continued questioning the other residents of the house and searching. 
 
 The boy's stepmother eventually directed officers to a closet on the home's third floor, according to the report, where Sgt. Joanne Southerland found a panel at the back wall. 
 
 She pushed it in, discovering the boy who looked "absolutely afraid," she told reporters on Monday. Southerland said she helped him out of the concealed compartment and calmed him down. She said the space where the boy had been hidden was bounded by the home's exterior siding, and he was enclosed within the wooden frame of the house and garage. 
 
 The boy then thanked officers for helping him, and later posed for photos with police while smiling widely. 
 
 The boy's 37-year-old birth father and 42-year-old stepmother face charges of false imprisonment, cruelty to children and obstruction. A message left for the attorney listed in jail records for the two adults was not returned late Monday. 
 
 The woman's three teenage children also were arrested, Porter said. Police said all five had denied knowing anything about another child living at the home, and the police report says they turned lights off and were slow to answer the door each time officers arrived. 
 
 The boy's father later told police he did have a 13-year-old son but he was in New York with a family member, according to the report. 
 
 Neighbors said the family appeared normal, and the 13-year-old often was seen outdoors. Porter said police have not found the boy was enrolled in public schools. It was not clear whether the mother had previously reported her son missing. Porter said he did not appear to be listed on any registries of missing children. 
 
 Julie Pizarro, who lives nearby, said the boy seemed quiet but she never thought anything was wrong. She said her own son even played with the boy a few times. 
 
 "And again there was nothing usual about the situation to me," Pizarro said. "You know, it just seemed like (it) was regular as apple pie ..." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press video journalist Johnny Clark contributed to this report. ||||| Story highlights Police say the missing 13-year-old thanked officers after they found him 
 
 He was inside a hidden compartment, behind the linen closet, police say 
 
 Police arrest boy's father and stepmother on false imprisonment, other charges 
 
 The boy contacted his mother by phone, helping officers find him, police say 
 
 A missing 13-year-old boy escaped from a hidden compartment in a Georgia home, crawling through a narrow opening behind the shelves of a linen closet to reach police. 
 
 The first thing Gregory Jean Jr. told officers, police said Monday, was "thank you." 
 
 "We told him who we were and we told him that we were here to help him," Clayton County Police Sgt. Joanne Southerland told reporters. "After minutes of talking with him, he was able to come out." 
 
 Before his rescue last week from an Atlanta-area home, the boy had been physically assaulted that day, Clayton County Police Chief Gregory Porter said. 
 
 The boy's mother told police he had been missing for four years. Porter told reporters Monday that investigators are still looking into the case. He declined to provide specific details, saying he didn't want to jeopardize the investigation. 
 
 JUST WATCHED See boy's emotional reunion with mom Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH See boy's emotional reunion with mom 01:18 
 
 "The point today is that the child is safe. ... There are a lot of unanswered questions at this point," he said. 
 
 The boy's father, 37-year-old Gregory Jean Sr., and stepmother, 42-year-old Samantha Joy Davis, were arrested and charged with false imprisonment, cruelty to children and obstruction, Porter said. A judge denied them bond at a court appearance Sunday, CNN affiliate WSB reported. Three teenagers who were living in the home were also arrested, Porter said. 
 
 The boy was reunited Saturday morning with his mother, who lives out of state, police said over the weekend. 
 
 The hidden compartment where the boy was found, police said, was an area filled with wooden beams and insulation between the garage and attic of the home in Jonesboro, Georgia. 
 
 "It was an area where no person should be living or held. ... No one should have been in that area where we found the victim," Porter said. 
 
 Police said it was unclear exactly how long the boy had been inside the compartment. He also shared a bedroom in the house, Southerland said. 
 
 The boy's father and stepmother didn't do anything to physically stop police from searching the house, she said, but "there was a lot of deception." 
 
 "They denied knowing the child existed, denied knowing the child was in the residence," Southerland told reporters. "They had no idea who the child was or why we were there." 
 
 Police said they first went to the home in Jonesboro on Friday night after the boy's mother contacted them. On the first visit, they didn't find him. Then his mother called 911 again, this time with more information provided by her son. 
 
 Southerland said police returned to the home, determined to find the boy. While police were at the house, the boy was able to communicate with his mother and give more detailed information about his whereabouts. That, she said, is how investigators found him. 
 
 "When we get a call like that....we won't leave until we make sure that any child is safe," Southerland said. "And that's what we did. ... It's just a reminder that we never know what happens behind closed doors. And we have to take every call seriously."
– "Thank you. Thank you." Those were the first words Gregory Jean Jr. spoke to police on Saturday when they peeled back a wood panel in an upstairs closet and found him crammed in the space between the garage and attic, WXIA reports. But the officers had help from Gregory himself, because it was the texts and photos he sent to his mom that helped police track down where the missing 13-year-old was hidden in his father and stepmother's house, the AP reports. And although Gregory Jean Sr., 37, and Samantha Joy Davis, 42, didn't bar police from searching the home, "there was a lot of deception," Clayton County Police Sgt. Joanne Southerland told reporters, as per CNN. In fact, the first officers on the scene—sent after a 911 call from the boy's mother—came up empty-handed and left after Jean and Davis said they knew nothing. After the police left, young Gregory contacted his mom again through the magicJack app and she redialed 911; when Southerland, who had worked in a Crimes Against Children unit for several years, heard that call, she made police go back and search again. "We weren't going to leave until we found him," she tells WXIA. The space Gregory was crammed into had nothing but wooden beams and insulation—"a space where no person should be living," the local police chief told reporters. The next court appearance for Jean and Davis, who have been charged with false imprisonment, child cruelty, and obstruction of justice, is scheduled for Dec. 9, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. (A girl missing for 12 years was recently found in Mexico.)