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(CNN) - An 11-year-old boy drove 320 miles through South Carolina to meet a stranger he only knew on Snapchat, the Charleston Police Department said.
After three hours of driving, the young man saw a police officer, stopped by his vehicle and said he was lost, according to police. The boy drove from the northwestern city of Simpsonville to Charleston.
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In the early hours of Monday, the boy told the agent that he had taken his brother's car to go to Charleston, where he wanted to live with "a man he met on Snapchat," police said.
But when he lost the GPS signal on his father's tablet, he could not recover the man's address, police said, as Snapchat messages disappear or are deleted after reading them.
The boy gave the police his name, his father's name and his cell phone. Later that day he met with his family.
Police have initiated an investigation into the unknown man, Charleston spokesman Charles Francis told WCSC, a CNN affiliate.
“I would love that tonight, at this time, anyone who is watching this, who is the father of a child, especially an 11-year-old child, who sits with his son, right now, right now and has a conversation about what he is doing on social media, the dangers, the benefits and the things we should talk about every day as parents, ”Charleston Police Chief Luther T. Reynolds told WCIV, a CNN affiliate.
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