Daytona Beach runaway, 11, falls asleep in back of pickup truck, wakes up in Jacksonville

An 11-year-old Daytona Beach boy, whose worried parents reported him missing Thursday night, sneaked onto a parked pickup truck and fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, he was in Jacksonville, police said.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said the child apparently left his Wild Olive Avenue home, walked to Halifax Avenue where he found the pickup and climbed into the back of the vehicle.

"So he made it over to Halifax, found this truck, he just climbed in the back and went to sleep," Young said. "The owner gets up (Friday morning), goes to work as normal, makes it to Jacksonville and then realizes there is a kid asleep in the back of his truck."

The boy, who has a history of running away from his mother's Alachua County home, left his stepmother's Daytona Beach apartment Thursday night, police said.

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Neither the boy's father or stepmother could be reached Monday afternoon.

After discovering the boy was missing at 7 p.m. Thursday, the child's stepmother and father looked for him. The worried couple then called police, according to a missing person's report filed with Daytona Beach Police.

A Volusia County sheriff's helicopter and bloodhounds from Tomoka Correctional Institution helped police search the Wild Olive Avenue neighborhood. 

Police were happy that the boy was found safe, Young said.

"We had been looking for him throughout the night, and then lo and behold we the get the phone call that he was recovered in Jacksonville," Young said. "We were relieved that he was recovered and his father went up to Jacksonville to pick him up."