Julianna Where Are You?

Look at this little girl's face, she is Julian Carroza, sometimes she goes by the name Julianna. She looks like most 12 year old girls growing up in Brooklyn, NY.

I grew up in East New York Brooklyn and I know Julian's world, she is a romantic, she is into the scene, older guys, she is a rebel force, she is pretty but doesn't think so. I was like this at her age. I drove my parents insane. I did poorly in School. I liked the drug dealer guys who hung out on the corner, they were nice to me and called me their baby sister often keeping an eye on me to make sure no one "messed" with me.

However, there are some differences between Julian and my former self at 12, when I grew up in the late 80's early 90's, there was no myspace, there was no chatting online, there was no posting sexy pictures of myself and talking to hundreds of people all over the world. I wasn't exposed to that 50 year old man posing as a teen to get me to fall in love with him and send him photos of myself, to then later convince me to meet up with him.

At 12 years old you think your life sucks, your parents suck, school sucks, and you think you know-it-all, but the truth is, you don't know it all, you know less than a little bit of it all and today in 2008 this ignorance can get you killed.

When I was 12 I had to be home before the 5pm news and even then my mom kept close tabs on my whereabouts, there were no cellphones so teens didn't have that to leverage.

Julian's story is more common than you think.

Julian is bipolar, she lived with her grandparents for an unconfirmed reason. I will assume she was a handful for mom, who was single, since Julian's father is currently in jail.

As is common today, Julian did not look like a bony 12 year old girl, she was tall and looked more like a 17 years old, which was the exact age she will tell people she was, including guys she met online and on the street.

Julian had/has over 300 myspace friends of all ages, creeds and repulsions. She lived online, she would breathe myspace. She posed seductively on myspace, she listed herself as bisexual, she lied repeatedly to her grandparents, her language was foul and even posted a picture of herself "drunk". This could all be a myspace persona, in reality, she wore braces, she had a lot of close friends, one of which was her cousin.

Julian had planned to run away with two of her cousin's, but at the last moment the two girls backed out and on November 14 at about 5:45pm, Julian told her grandparents she didn't feel well and was going to her room to lie down, instead, she tip toed out of the house with a suitcase in hand and into the back of a waiting livery cab.

She was later seen in a Jeep with a much older Hispanic male. It is easy to just toss this story aside and say that Julian was a difficult girl who just ran away and does not deserve media attention and so it seems that NYC feels the same way, since her story is nonexistent here. But I will remind you she is only 12 years old. There is a predator out there ready to exploit her, hurt her or kill her, or who has done so already.

Why is it not important to look for these kids who are misinformed about life? These kids who for some reason think they are bigger than life and then end up a drug addict or prostitute on the street, even worse, end up a dead Jane Doe in an ally.

If you have seen or heard from Julian please contact the following, there is a $35,000 reward for her safe return: Missing Persons at 212-694-7781 or The 72nd precinct at 718-965-6311.

Her family has been posting messages to her on her myspace account: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=363438517

There are 7 other runaways from Brooklyn, NY, but I can't find a picture or information on any of them.