ORLANDO, Fla. — A teenager who was mistakenly released from the Orange County Juvenile Detention Center is back in custody.
WFTV learned that officials released the wrong teenager Sunday from an Orange County Juvenile Detention Center on Bumby Avenue.
Investigators said 15-year-old Zachary Winn's disappearance set off a massive search in which deputies searched by ground and from the air.
Authorities took the teen into custody around 3 p.m. Monday in Taft after someone spotted him in east Orange County and called Eyewitness News.
Authorities said the inmate who was supposed to be released yesterday and Winn who got away have similar names. The spellings, however, are different.
Winn was being held on charges of larceny theft, trespassing and violation of probation, according to officials.
Authorities also did not say what original charges led to the violation-of-probation charge.
The Department of Juvenile Justice said it was conducting an internal investigation.
Winn was booked again Monday at the Juvenile Assessment Center in downtown Orlando.
Deputies said they are going to add resisting arrest and possibly other charges.
Winn’s mother said the center had plenty of chances to realize they let the wrong teen go.
Melissa Maher, Winn’s mother, said she got a panicked phone call and got worried when staff told her they let Winn out of the center and couldn’t find him.
“It’s just a big mess,” Maher said.
Maher said there were other obvious differences.
“From what I understand the kid that they mixed up, my son is part Hispanic and white, the other child is a black child,” Maher said.
Winn also has visible, distinct tattoos on his arms.
“My son even said, when I just spoke to him, ‘Mom, I asked them three times, are you sure I'm supposed to be released?’” Maher said.
Winn told his mother he walked to a nearby uncle's house, got a bike and rode to a friend's home.
A few hours earlier, another teenager, Dustin Lowe, said deputies thought he was Winn and wanted to take him into custody.
“He was asking if I was Zach, he was asking if I had an ID or anything,” Lowe said.
Dustin Lowe lives in the same house as Winn and his mother.
Lowe said he had to show his Lynx bus ID and birth certificate to prove who he was.
Winn will be back in court Tuesday morning.
Winn was scheduled to go to a live-in facility for the next six months, but it's unclear if that will happen now.
WFTV is working to get more answers from the detention center, and find out if this has happened before.
WFTV
