Family pleads for info on missing Cleveland woman Ashley Summers

It was a blockbuster story heard around the world: A Cleveland man named Ariel Castro arrested after kidnapping and holding three young girls captive for years.

Today the FBI needs your help in tracking down a girl who went missing just blocks away from Castro's home.

Jennifer Summers is tortured wondering what happened to her beautiful 14-year-old daughter Ashley Summers. She felt a glimmer of hope when a story breaks national headlines. It was the story that grabbed the country by the throat and broke America's heart: Several young women who vanished without a trace were found alive in May 2013.

She wondered: Could one of them be Ashley Summers?

"The first notification that went out to the public was three young females had been found," said Cleveland FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson.

They'd been raped, tortured and held captive for nearly a decade by 52-year-old school bus driver Ariel Castro.

Watching the story unfold, Jennifer Summers is hoping it's the end of her long nightmare.

"I was at home watching the news that day and they said they found three girls," said Jennifer. "Well, there was only three girls that we all knew about in Cleveland; it was Amanda Berry, Georgina and Ashley."

Ashley mysteriously disappeared from the same neighborhood as the other two girls.

"We had Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, they had been missing since one since 2003 and the other since 2004," said Anderson.

Special Agent Vicki Anderson says when Ashley vanished, the FBI feared a serial kidnapper was hunting young girls in Cleveland.

"We automatically began to lump Ashley into the grouping of Amanda and Gina," said Anderson.

After six torturous years without her daughter, Jennifer Summers thought her daughter had finally been found. Cops immediately identified Amanda and Gina, but they didn't release the identity of the third girl.

"I immediately thought it was Ashley so I was kind of waiting for the phone call," said Jennifer. But the phone never rings.

"It turned out not to be Ashley," said Jennifer. "I was kind of mad that it wasn't her there."

The third young woman turns out to be Michelle Knight.

"I'm still waiting for the phone call, the day it will be her," said Jennifer.

So where is Ashley Summers? At the time Ashley disappeared, Jennifer says her daughter was going though some serious teenage angst.

"She was hanging with the wrong people and they were influencing her in the wrong way," said Jennifer.

Ashley stopped going to school, got her new boyfriend's name "Gene" tattooed on her arm, and moved into Jennifer's uncle's house.

"We believe the last person that saw her was an uncle," said Vicki Anderson.

He told Jennifer that her daughter left his house that day without saying a word.

"I called my uncle to check on Ashley, and he said that she went home, and so I began to call other relatives and no one had seen her," said Jennifer.

All of Ashley's clothes were gone. But oddly she'd left her phone behind.

"I froze. I didn't know what to do, so I immediately went to the police station, filed a missing-persons report," said Jennifer.

Cleveland Police initially believe Ashley is a teenage runaway, and put her case on the back burner. But Jennifer says without a doubt, her daughter did not leave on her own.

"I used to drive around day in, day out, looking for her, I would talk to her friends to find out where she used to hang out at, we put flyers up everywhere and nothing," said Jennifer.

Jennifer even questions Ashley's boyfriend Gene, the one whose name she had tattooed on her arm.

"He'd never seen her from that day either, which was odd," said Jennifer.

Ashley never contacts a single friend or relative. And then about a month after her disappearance, Jennifer says, she gets a strange call from a private number.

"I answered it and there was Ashley on the other line, and said 'It's me, mom, I'm OK, don't worry -- click," said Jennifer. "At that moment I was 100-percent sure it was her, but now when I replay it I'm like, 'Was it really her?'"

Was it really Ashley, or possibly a cruel hoax? By now both the Cleveland Police Department and the FBI are also wondering what happened to Ashley.

"It wasn't until Ashley didn't come home that it really became concerning that maybe she wasn't a runaway, or maybe she had run away, but something had happened to her during that time period," said FBI Agent Vicki Anderson.

"I'll think she's been kidnapped and I also think about human-trafficking, and then I think about the worst, and then I have to stop thinking at that point," said Jennifer.

The FBI launches a massive search for Ashley. Over the years, friends, family and complete strangers report Ashley sightings.

"Myself and my husband saw her walking down Lorraine Avenue with her hair cut, because she stared right in our car but by the time I got turned around she had disappeared down an alley," said Linda Summers, Ashley's step-grandmother.

But nothing ever pans out, leaving many wondering if Ashley is dead -- or maybe she simply doesn't want to be found.

Jennifer's hope was about to be renewed. After years of searching, the FBI releases an age-progression photo of how experts believe Ashley would look today.

And of all people, Ashley's step-grandmother finds a possible match.

"Ashley's step-grandmother was on the internet and came across a woman that was wanted in Rhode Island for some thefts," said Vicki Anderson.

The woman and a male friend went to withdraw money with a stolen ATM card and were caught on camera. A security camera captured an image of a woman resembling Ashley. Could it be her?

"We looked at the pictures, we too thought, 'Oh my goodness, is that Ashley? It looked so much like Ashley," said Anderson.

"When I saw the photo I did think it was Ashley," said Jennifer.

The FBI blasts the security-cam picture throughout the country.

"We needed to get this women in this ATM photo identified," said Anderson. "We needed to know if this is not Ashley, then who is it?"

Would this finally be the call Jennifer Summers had been waiting for, or just more heartbreak for the mom so desperate to find her daughter?

"And it was not Ashley," said Vicki Anderson.

"Nine years later, there's no peace at all," said Jennifer.

Jennifer still has faith her daughter is out there somewhere. But whenever hope fades, she thinks about those other missing girls from Cleveland who turned up alive all those years later.

"I just hope to get that phone call that she's coming home," said Jennifer. "I wonder if it's going to be the day."

If you have any information on Ashley Summer's disappearance or where she might be today, you can contact the FBI in Cleveland at (216) 522-1400.