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The missing 13-year-old girl who sparked a decades-long, nationwide search amid fears she had been kidnapped actually ran away and has been secretly living another life for the past 30 years.
Authorities dropped the bombshell this week that Christina Marie Plante had been found alive — decades after she vanished under suspicious circumstances in Arizona.
Cold case investigators with the Gila County Sheriff’s Office only managed to make contact with her recently — and were shocked to learn the blonde, blue-eyed girl had left on purpose.
“I was dumbfounded,” Capt. Jamie Garrett told NewsNation’s “Jesse Weber Live” on Thursday.
“I guess she wasn’t happy with where she was living and who she was living with and she ran away,” she added.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. Okay, so you ran away.’ I told her … ‘You know, we were under the impression that somebody kidnapped you. It was deemed a criminal offense.’”
Plante vanished from the tiny town of Star Valley, north-east of Phoenix, after she set off to see her horse in a stable near her home back in May 1994.
The teen’s disappearance was described at the time as “suspicious” and authorities warned she was “endangered.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what led investigators to the eventual breakthrough in the case but authorities noted that advances in technology helped develop new leads.
Garrett, who was the investigator who contacted Plante to confirm her identity, said the now 44-year-old woman confirmed she fled home with the help of other family members she had been speaking too.
“She said that was a long time ago, that was an old life,” Garrett said.
“She’s in her adult life. She has her family now. That’s not something she even thinks about.”
Plante refused to give other details but said she had been living under a different name for years.
Authorities had previously said they weren’t releasing any further details about the case “out of respect for Christina’s privacy and well-being.”
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