LEESVILLE, CA (MPG) – The desperate hunt for a runaway teenager is over.
The 15-year-old Leesville girl who was last seen three months ago has been found safe and has been reunited with her family, Colusa County Sheriff’s Officials reported.
The Colusa County Sheriff’s Office’s Detective Unit located Lilly Edwards, on Jan. 19, living in a tent near the American River, in Sacramento, with Andrew Magana, 18, of Maxwell, the man she left home with sometime in the night of Oct. 9, without her parent’s permission.
On Sunday, Lilly’s mother, Cristy Edwards, posted on social media her relief that her daughter was home, and thanked the local law enforcement team, including Assistant Sheriff Michael Bradwell and Detective Kane Lausten, for their tireless effort to locate Lilly, and for the support she received from the community.
“My tribe of family, friends, and community are powerful prayer warriors and loving people,” Cristy Edwards said. “I am so profoundly touched.”
In a news release, issued shortly after the pair were located, the Colusa County Sheriff’s Office also thanked everyone who assisted in this investigation, including the public, non-profit entities, and other law enforcement agencies involved in trying to find the teen after she and Magana were driven out of the county by a friend.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Edwards and Magana were cooperative when they were discovered around 11:50 am last Friday. Both were transported back to the Colusa County Jail, where Magana was arrested on two misdemeanor charges on suspicion of defying a custody order and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was booked into the Colusa County Jail on $5,000 bail.
Lilly Edwards was reportedly unharmed by the ordeal, although her mother noted, while posting a new photo of the smiling teenager, that there would be some “down time and work to do.”