The 10-year-old girl who claimed to have been abducted from in front of her Klahanie home on Monday, Jan. 19, has admitted her story was a lie.

The King Country Sheriff’s Office has subsequently closed the case.

The girl confessed to her parents on Saturday evening, and her parents promptly notified detectives investigating the case.

She had claimed that she was grabbed by a man outside her home, and that he threw her bike into the back of his pickup, before putting the girl into the cab and driving off.

She said that she physically resisted the man, and made a lot of noise, forcing him to pull over and release her, and her bike.

The girl said in an interview with King 5 news last Wednesday that the man then drove for almost 2 miles, down SE Issaquah – Fall City Road.

Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Office said today that the girl would not be subject to any official prosecution.

“It is legally presumed that any person under the age of 12 is incapable of committing crime,” he said. “If she were 12 or older she would possibly be charged with filing a false police report, which is a misdemeanor.”

The girl apparently provided a motive for the false report, but that information will not be released.

The revelation has sparked debate in the community as to whether or not the girl should be punished for igniting fear and suspicion in her community, including calls for a community service sentence.

Jim Curtis, a teacher in North Bend who has lobbied for the introduction of abduction awareness and self-defense classes in schools in the Puget Sound area, said that this one false report should not deter parents and children from being vigilant.

“Statistically it has been shown that in spring and summer there is a rise in the number of child abductions, as the warmer weather brings kids out into the parks and playgrounds,” he said. “Just because this one report proved false doesn’t mean we should forget that there are still predators out there.”

Curtis said that the AMBER Alert system, which police use to distribute information on possible abductions via e-mail, electronic billboards and text messaging systems, is not effective.

“Even if the child is retrieved, and often they are not, the child has already suffered significant trauma,” he said.

Curtis said that the correct training would help prevent children from being taken in the first instance.

AMBER now stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.”

It was originally named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl from Arlington, Texas, who was abducted and murdered in 1996.