Boy Found at Home of Online User

Local and federal authorities Saturday were trying to piece together details of the cross-country trek a 12-year-old Palm Springs boy made to the home of a 31-year-old Virginia man he met on the Internet.

Seventh-grader Brian Karl Poulsen was found, apparently in good condition and unharmed, by federal agents Friday evening in a small closet-like space of the man’s home in Fairfax, Va.

“He . . . was immediately taken to the hospital to make sure he was not injured,” said Palm Springs Police Det. John Booth.

It was not immediately clear if the boy was simply hiding in the home or was being coerced to stay.

Brian reportedly had communicated with the Virginia man via the Internet and telephone, and the man, a supermarket employee, had sent the boy a bus ticket, authorities said.

No arrests had been made as of late Saturday. After several hours of questioning by investigators, the unidentified man was released and permitted to return home. A Fairfax County police spokesman said “if there had been any evidence of abuse or anything like that, charges most likely would have been pressed” immediately.

Late Saturday, the investigation was continuing and local and federal prosecutors were conferring regarding the evidence and any possible charges, said Special Agent Susan Lloyd of the FBI’s Washington field office.

The boy, who reportedly had a fascination with Internet chat rooms, was released late Saturday from a Fairfax County juvenile facility after being reunited with his parents. Investigators planned to hold a hearing on Monday to examine the circumstances surrounding Brian’s decision to leave home.

The boy had been missing since Sept. 4, when he left his father a phone message that he was going to see an Angels game with a friend. The boy left no information as to who he was going with or when he would return.

A missing telephone calling card belonging to the boy’s aunt was used to retrace his movements from a San Bernardino Greyhound bus station to an Anaheim motel near Disneyland. The calling card also led Palm Springs police to the Virginia address, where the man told investigators in a phone call that he had sent Brian a bus ticket so he could visit.

But when Fairfax County police went to the man’s home Sept. 22, they saw no signs of foul play. And the man insisted that he had put the boy on a bus home that day.

“Apparently, that was not the case,” Lloyd said Saturday.

Instead, investigators believe that Brian has remained in Fairfax County continuously since Sept. 7, after traveling east, possibly via El Paso, Texas, where a call was placed using the same calling card.

Brian’s parents are separated; the boy had moved from his mother’s home to live with his father in Palm Springs a few weeks before he disappeared, Lloyd said.

On Friday the mother, Celeste Poulsen, told KCBS-TV she is extremely angry and wants to confront the man who sent her son the cross-country bus ticket. “I’m mad,” she said. “I want to meet him face to face. I want to ask him, ‘Why? What’s your problem?’ ”

Brian’s father, Don Poulsen, expressed relief Friday evening, the Associated Press reported. “I’m just enormously thrilled to understand that he’s safe. I want to make sure he realizes we love him and we’re here for him,” Poulsen said.

The day before Brian was found, the National Center for Missing Children had distributed bulletins about the missing boy to airports, bus stations and police nationwide.

Authorities say the boy was intrigued with Internet chat rooms and on one previous occasion met a person who turned out to be a registered sex offender. That case is under investigation by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.