Missing Texas Teen Dies Months After Being Reunited With Family

A Texas teen who sparked a police investigation after she reportedly ran away with a suspected “internet predator” she met on Snapchat has died two months after being reunited with her family, her mother said.

Heaven Ray Cox, 15, “left us to be with Jesus,” her mother Tammy Day Cox wrote on Facebook Saturday – asking people to “stop and pray” for her daughter.

Heaven vanished from the family’s home in Orange County, Texas on Nov. 26, but was found five days later at the home of a relative of a someone she knew, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. She was reunited with her family on December 1.

While the family had initially claimed that Heaven was likely lured away by an “internet predator” she met through Snapchat, the police believe that she ran away on her own and have not confirmed that a “predator” of any kind was involved in her brief disappearance.

After her disappearance last year Heaven’s mother revealed the teen suffered from mental illness.

Tuesday, Tammy Day Cox announced that family-only services for Heaven will be Friday at Faith United Church.

Heaven’s cause of death has not been revealed and authorities haven’t commented.