A teenage girl who was held captive for more than 500 days helped secure her own rescue after she told another child she was held hostage while they played an online whodunnit video game together. Kylie Arellano, 17, had been missing from her home in Utah since May 2025 when she struck up a conversation with another young player on video game Among Us last month. Among Us is an online game in which players try to fix a broken spaceship while secret traitors aim to kill faithful crew members and sabotage the repairs.
Crew members must try to deduce who is fighting against them. Arellano told the player she was being held against her will at a man's home in Oregon, according to federal court documents. The other child's mother contacted the FBI, leading to Arellano's rescue on November 1, more than 17 months after she disappeared.
Adam Harmel, 39, from Huntington, Oregon, has been charged with allegedly transporting the teenager across state lines for the purpose of exploiting her. Prosecutors say Harmel kept Arellano in his basement and repeatedly assaulted her, even forcing her to remove her braces with pliers so she would be less identifiable. An FBI affidavit stated that Harmel kept a knife beneath his pillow and made the teenager sleep against the wall in his bed so she could not escape.
Arellano was 15 when she disappeared from Garden City, Utah, on May 29, 2025. Her mother, Stephanie Coleman, said she had exchanged goodnight messages with her daughter shortly before she vanished. Then her phone went offline, and her jacket and other belongings were found left behind.
Coleman had long suspected her daughter had been lured away by someone she met online, although she had been unable to establish what happened. Investigators spent the following 521 days pursuing dozens of leads and reported sightings across the United States and overseas. The search involved the FBI's Salt Lake City Field Office and the Rich County Sheriff's Office, with assistance from other state and federal agencies.
A law enforcement source previously said Arellano was thought to have met the suspect through the social media photo app Snapchat before her disappearance. The federal complaint says Harmel made contact with Arellano online in May 2025 and told her he had a disability affecting his hips. He allegedly offered her money to travel to Oregon.
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