A woman who vanished from a central Arizona town nearly 32 years ago has told investigators she was not abducted but ran away with the help of family members, Gila County officials said Friday.
Christina Marie Plante, who was 13 when she disappeared from the small community of Star Valley on May 16, 1994, is now 44 and living under a different name, Chief Deputy James Lahti of the Gila County Sheriff’s Office told NBC News. Lahti said Plante informed a cold‑case investigator that certain relatives helped her leave — information the office had not previously known. The sheriff’s office announced Wednesday that she had been located but declined to release her current whereabouts out of respect for her privacy.
The new account contradicts initial public assumptions that Plante had been kidnapped. Terry Hudgens, a former Gila County sheriff’s deputy who led the original investigation, said Thursday that the disappearance had effectively been resolved soon after she was reported missing. Hudgens told reporters at the time and again this week that Plante’s father had legal custody but she wished to live with her mother; the two met while she was walking to a stable to tend her horse, then left together and flew out of state — and possibly out of the country. “It was a custody battle,” Hudgens said of the episode and said the early probe was dropped after confirming Plante’s safety.
Lahti confirmed Hudgens led the initial search but emphasized the case was never officially closed. He said investigators are continuing to review what Plante has told them and will provide updates as new information develops. Lahti declined to elaborate on which family members assisted her departure or whether any further legal action is being considered.
Capt. Jamie Garrett, the sheriff’s deputy who located Plante, told NewsNation that she had remained in touch with some family members over the years and did not want to be found. “I guess she wasn’t happy with where she was living and who she was living with, and she ran away,” Garrett said. Garrett quoted Plante as saying the disappearance was “a long time ago, that was an old life,” and that she now has her own family and adult life she does not revisit.
Plante was last sighted heading to the stable where her horse was kept, according to the sheriff’s office missing-person poster. At the time, she was living with an aunt and uncle who later posted a $10,000 reward for information. Her name was entered into national missing-children databases, and Lahti said investigators periodically revisited the cold case over the years as the trail went cold.
Public records show a woman with Plante’s name and date of birth lived in Portland, Oregon, from June 2004 through May 2006, but officials in Portland told NBC News they had no contact with that person during that period. Neither Lahti nor Garrett provided details about how Plante was located this month.
Gila County Sheriff Adam Shepherd’s announcement that the long‑running case had been resolved drew national attention to the rural county northeast of Phoenix. Authorities are balancing their stated goal of clarifying the facts with protecting Plante’s stated desire for privacy as investigators continue to follow up on leads and collect more detail about her departure in 1994.