Woman surrenders in hoax that prompted frantic search

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kentucky woman accused of lying about being kidnapped, raped, shot and stabbed has surrendered to Platte County authorities.

Laura E. Crews, 18, of Nicholasville, Ky., turned herself in shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday, two days after being charged with a misdemeanor count of filing a false report.

According to a court document accompanying the charge, Crews was supposed to fly to Kansas City on Sept. 17 to meet her boyfriend and his mother. Instead, she called him and told him she had been abducted, assaulted and dumped in a ditch near the airport. The boyfriend's mother then called 911.

That call set off a flurry of emergency involvement by eight local, county and state agencies, and diverted traffic at Kansas City International Airport to allow a police helicopter search. Kentucky police found Crews at her home.

Authorities have said that Crews and the boyfriend knew each other from the Internet but had never met.