She went jogging like she did most mornings.

But on May 27, Crystal Sexton, a rising junior at Loganville High, kept running. Her mother got in her car and drove around, looking for the 16-year-old.

“I said, ‘Something is wrong,’ ” Donna Sexton told me. ” ‘This is not right. Something is just not right.’ “

She called Loganville Police and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. She passed out fliers with Crystal’s photo.

Before long, Tina Elkins got wind of the missing child. She’s a licensed private investigator, owner of Snellville-based TAMA Investigations, Inc., Elkins has been a P.I. for 14 years.

Her mother’s difficulty dealing with a workers’ compensation issue got her into detective work. Her injured mother had a tough time seeing the doctors she needed to see.

“I came to the conclusion that the reason we were having so many problems was because of fraud in the workers’ comp industry,” said Elkins, a married mother of three. “Being naive, I thought I could become a private investigator and clean it all up.”

So Elkins took a private detective class at a community college. She completed the required two-year stint as an apprentice with a local agency. “It took me about 3 years to do that,” she told me. “Then I took the state exam.”

She belongs to a couple of associations that alert her via e-mail when kids nationwide go missing. That’s how she heard about Crystal and decided to join the search.

Last Thursday, Elkins had gotten a telephone call from someone who thought they’d spotted the girl. She was en route to the location when her cellphone rang. Crystal’s mom. Her daughter had been spotted in the backyard of a house in Loganville. A woman recognized her and contacted Loganville police. Crystal hadn’t been abducted. She, for some reason, had run away. Unclear why.

“What matters to me is she is alive,” Sexton said. “I’m happy she’s back and thank God that she’s alive. We definitely will be getting her some counseling, some Christian counseling.”

Elkins started working the Sexton case on May 30, Day No. 3 of the girl’s disappearance. She and a colleague saturated nearby towns with posters. They vetted tips, some legit, many bogus. They set up surveillance of homes and locales suggested by tipsters.

And guess what?

Elkins did it all pro bono. Free. It’s her way of giving back to the community.

“I’m very fortunate that this community has supported me for 14 years,’ she told me. “When a child comes up missing, if there is anything I can do with my professional experience, I try to do that. If they are in my area - that being Lawrenceville, Snellville, Grayson and Loganville - I get involved.”

Sexton, a stay-at-home mom and licensed hairdresser, appreciates Elkins’ benevolence.

“That girl is awesome,” she said. “She helped me, listened to me, talked to me and we fussed at each other a little bit. I am very grateful to her. She needs to be honored.”

In all, Elkins figures her agency poured 150 person-hours into the search, a bill that would have amounted to several thousand dollars.

“It’s a lot of time and our fees are standard with the industry,” she said. “But hey - a child is home.”