Prosecutors do not plan on filing criminal charges against the man who was living with 17-year-old Penelope Wise for seven weeks, as her family was desperately trying to track down the teenager.
Penelope “Penny” Wise was discovered living at a home on Northland Drive in Rockford Sunday afternoon , after a neighbor following the case saw the girl packing items onto a bike.
“I know not everybody believes in God, but I really believe that he put us in the right place, at the right time to see her,” that neighbor told FOX 17. “I think it was divine.”
Investigators say Wise left her family home voluntarily all the way back on May 31, 2024.
She was spotted on surveillance camera near the Corner Bar in downtown Rockford around midnight on June 1.
Just two hours later, about 2 a.m., Kent County detectives believe she met a 44-year-old man. They say she went with the man to his home in Rockford, where she stayed for nearly seven weeks.
Investigators revealed Monday that they believe the 17-year-old and 44-year-old had become “engaged” in the period of time they spent together.
On Sunday, July 21, Penny was reportedly out front of the man’s home, stuffing items into a baby carrier attached to a bicycle.
“As I stopped at the stop sign, I saw a girl with her bike and she was crouched down,” a woman who lives just down the street from the 44-year-old man told FOX 17.
The neighbor asked not to be identified at this time.
“She's looking at me, I'm looking at her, and as we were driving, I was like, ‘Mom, that's the missing girl from Cedar Springs.'”
Penny appeared to be packing up her bike for some sort of trip. The women knew they had to act fast.
“So, we drove up, we opened the window… My mom was like, ‘Hey, honey, are you okay?’ and she kind of peaked her head over,” she explained.
“She's like, ‘Yeah, I'm good,’ and I was like, ‘Do you need help?’ and she's like, ‘No, no, I'm fine.’”
The neighbor knew it in the pit of her stomach: they had found Penelope Wise.
“We've been following the case online; we've been looking at her picture; we've been thinking about Penny,” she explained.
She recalled the Kent County Sheriff’s Office even coming through the neighborhood several weeks ago to search for anyone with surveillance video that might show Penny.
“So, she's been on our mind, and it was like a jolt hit.”
On Tuesday, the woman told FOX 17 she was still processing everything that happened.
“I'm like, 'Did we see her before?' How could we have not seen her?” she said. “It is really sad that she was there the whole time.”
The man who Penny was living with has not been charged with anything criminal at this point.
He does have previous unrelated criminal convictions on his record, including felony domestic violence involving a pregnant individual, misdemeanor child abuse, and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker tells FOX 17 that his office analyzed the case extensively for potential charges.
“You’d think there'd be some sort of law that would prevent this, but we looked at it,” Becker said Tuesday. “It's clearly troubling, but we can't just charge things that we find troubling. We have to follow the law, and that's what we did.”
His office looked at the possibility of issuing charges such as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or harboring a runaway.
But, those charges can only be applied if a victim is 16 years old or younger.
“If this was under 16, there's a whole different ballgame,” Becker explained.
They also considered a charge of custodial interference, though that law only applies to parents interfering with custody matters.
Becker says, “We were just left without anything to charge.”
It is a situation that would have to be remedied by the Legislature in Lansing.
Penny has not yet been reunited with her family, receiving resources at a juvenile facility for a period.
"We're happy that she's been found,” Mishael Wise, Penny’s mother, told FOX 17 Monday afternoon. “We are trying to heal and put our family back together.”
Investigators believe they have worked out a full timeline of events stretching from the moment Penny left her home until she was found in Rockford.
Still, anyone with potential information about the case can contact the Sheriff’s Office at (616) 632-6100 or Silent Observer.
Missing Rockford teen was "engaged" to man she was living with
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