MARGATE, Fla. — The grandmother of a 10-year-old Margate girl missing since late June said Thursday she is desperate for answers and faulted the courts after law enforcement questioned the child’s mother in a jail cell but could not locate the girl.

Jonette Vasel spoke exclusively to Local 10 from her Central Florida home about her granddaughter, Gabrielle Terrelonge, whom police say was last seen in Hollywood in late June.

Vasel said she helped raise Gabrielle until the child was about 6 years old.

“It breaks my heart and I can’t sleep (or) function.” Vasel said. “If I got a hold of Passha, I would probably commit suicide with her because I would try to strangle her to death. She knows where that child is. She’s too calm.”

Vasel said her son, Gordon, discovered that a phone belonging to the child’s mother, Passha Davis, 34, had a tracker on it but that he lost contact with the device.

“He had threw out the phone and had no way of tracker her or communicating,” she said.

Vasel said Gordon later learned Davis was arrested in Margate in mid-October on charges that included resisting arrest and using a false identity. That prompted the family to ask police about Gabrielle.

“Where’s my daughter? They said they didn’t know she had a daughter,” Vasel said while speaking for Gordon.

Broward County deputies questioned Davis while she was jailed and Davis denied knowing the child’s whereabouts and told investigators she thought Gabrielle was with her father, according to investigators.

Jail records show Davis faces one count of child neglect without great bodily harm, authorities said.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

“No one knows where this child is,” Vasel said. She said the FBI is involved with the case.

While being interviewed by Local 10, deputies arrived at Vasel’s home to speak with her.

“I’m trying to find her. I would do anything in my power if I could get to that mother and choke it out of her I would,” Vasel said.

Vasel told Local 10 that Davis is homeless and struggles with mental health and substance abuse issues, and that family members had tried to obtain custody of Gabrielle.

“I tried but the court ... they failed us,” she said.

Anyone with information about Gabrielle Terrelonge’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Margate Police Department at 954-972-7111 or the Broward County Sheriff’s Office at 954-831-8901.

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