{"id":87958,"date":"2026-01-15T22:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T22:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:56:08","slug":"this-philadelphia-teen-is-missing-his-family-says-he-may-have-been-lured-to-california-through-online-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87958\/","title":{"rendered":"This Philadelphia teen is missing. His family says he may have been lured to California through online gaming."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lashante Crocker-Johnson said she&#8217;s praying for her son Jahmez Cartwright&#8217;s safe return.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I been feeling numb, lost. I think he&#8217;s in trouble,&#8221; she said of her 18-year-old son. &#8220;He&#8217;s not answering nobody&#8217;s texts. Everyone has been trying to get in touch with him. The messages are delivering, but he&#8217;s not responding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said the last time she saw her son was on Monday at 7:00 a.m. in the 6500 block of Linmore Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>Jahmez was leaving home at the time and was on his way to Hardy Williams High School, where he&#8217;s a student, but Johnson said he never showed up.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/16pkg-rs-missing-teen-transfer-frame-1488.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"16pkg-rs-missing-teen-transfer-frame-1488.jpg \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  Jahmez Cartwright, a Philadelphia teenager, is missing, but police say his phone last pinged in San Diego.<\/p>\n<p>                CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We text every day,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He never gave me any suspicion that he was going to be doing anything like this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said Jahmez has a learning disability, and she believes someone may have taken advantage of her son.<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia Police are now investigating and learned his phone last pinged in San Diego.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson said her son, who was an avid gamer, may have been lured away from Philadelphia by a man he communicated with through a popular online gaming app.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t even know how he got there,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Like how did you get there so fast? You just left me Monday at 7:00 a.m., gave me a kiss and hug and said you were going to school. You don&#8217;t even have an I.D. Like I don&#8217;t understand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnson is also getting help from The Black and Missing Foundation, which is a nonprofit that helps find missing people.<\/p>\n<p>Co-founder Derricka Wilson is now warning parents about the dangers of online gaming.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s so important for families, grandparents, parents, and caregivers to realize the dangers of online gaming,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson is growing concerned for her son&#8217;s safety with each day that goes by. She, along with police, is urging anyone with information about Jahmez to come forward and contact the authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lashante Crocker-Johnson said she&#8217;s praying for her son Jahmez Cartwright&#8217;s safe return. &#8220;I been feeling numb, lost. I&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4172,3640,69,71,70,39352,2653],"class_list":["post-87958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-california","tag-missing-person","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-san-diego","tag-southwest-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}