A 12-year-old Social Circle girl discovered by a sheriff's deputy in a Morgan County park has become part of a multi-agency investigation into alleged sex trafficking.

The Morgan County Citizen newspaper reported the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting two county sheriff's offices in the investigation following the incident in a Rutledge park in the early morning hours of July 19.

The newspaper quoted Morgan County Sheriff's Lt. Brandon Sellers as saying the teen’s mother told Conyers police she suspected her daughter had been “seduced” by a 24-year-old male and had left her Conyers home with the man. 

The teen then called her mother the morning of July 19 and told her she had been abandoned by the man in Rutledge and wanted to come home. Reports stated the mother told investigators she believed the man had been selling her daughter for sex.

When a deputy arrived at the park about 2:40 a.m. he found the Social Circle 12-year-old and the teen hiding behind a tree in the southwest corner of the park. He asked the girls about their conditions and both responded they were OK and stepped out from behind the tree, the newspaper reported. 

The deputy reported he saw a third person behind the tree and the two girls told the deputy “it was some man that came by to check on them." The man, Quintavious Davon Benton, 22, of Rutledge, was later charged with enticing a minor for indecent purposes.

However, reports state the juveniles told officers that Benton was not the man that had abandoned them at the park and the 15-year-old’s mother identified another man as a suspect in taking the teen, the newspaper reported.

Relatives of the 12-year-old were contacted and returned the girl to her Social Circle residence, it reported.

The GBI, Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office and Morgan County Sheriff’s Office were working to locate the original suspect and determine the scope of the incident, the Citizen reported.