Girls reveal little during phone calls to family

A Charleston family has heard from two nieces who disappeared in Texas last month, but the teens haven't revealed where they are or what drove them to leave.

Elsa and Celia Fitch vanished from their Spring Branch, Texas, home after their family went to sleep on Feb. 11. Investigators surmised that the girls had run away, possibly with help from someone they met on the Internet through role-playing games involving witchcraft.

Family members heard nothing from the sisters until a week or so ago, when they contacted relatives on their father's side, said uncle Dan Mengedoht, a Charleston real estate agent whose sister, Anne, is the girls' mother.

"They claim they are fine and are safe," he said. "But we still have no idea where they are."

Another sister, Monti Mengedoht Hanger of Charleston, said the calls have come in at odd times on a bad connection. The girls spend just a few minutes or less on the line, reveal little and then hang up. They claim to have purchased a car and that Elsa got a job to support them, but relatives aren't sure how much of this is true, Hanger said.

Hanger recently returned from Texas after helping her sister's family with the search.

Anne Fitch, also a Charleston native, and her husband, Hollis, have been frantically trying to find the girls while caring for their other three children, Hanger said. "They're just sad, horrified and frustrated," she said of the girls' parents.

Elsa, 16, and Celia, 15, told some friends at school they were going to California. They told others they were headed for Florida. The girls turned off their cell phones, cleaned out their bank accounts and left with their passports, Social Security cards, health records and school files, Fitch has said.

The family and police have been in contact with a woman in San Diego who was involved in online role-playing games with Elsa involving witchcraft, Fitch has said. The woman told the family she has been in contact with the girls but doesn't know where they are.

Phone records show thousands of minutes worth of phone calls between Elsa and the woman in the two months leading up to their disappearance, Hanger said. The girls also received a package from her shortly before they left, she said.

A Facebook page Mengedoht created to spread word of their plight drew more than 6,100 people before authorities asked the family to shut it down for fear it might interfere with the official investigation, relatives said.

The family's message to the girls remains the same, however.

"We just want to communicate to them that we love them and want them to come home," Mengedoht said.

Reach Glenn Smith at 937-5556 or gsmith@postandcourier.com.