Teenager Gloria Alvarado, 15, was found safe and is now home with her family after being missing since Nov. 1.
By ZEINAB NAJM
Sunday Times Newspapers
TAYLOR — A Taylor teenager was found safe after going missing in November, according to police and her mother.
Details about where or how Gloria Alvarado, 15, was found were not immediately released.
Tina Mattei-Alvarado said she received a phone call Jan. 14 from police that her daughter had been found and that she was safe with the family.
“She’s OK, but we have her back,” Mattei-Alvarado said in a Facebook video. “I thank everybody that the took the time to share, to put up flyers, to look, to do searches. I’m just, like, lost for words but I’m happy that she’s back and she’s whole in one piece and alive. She’s good. It’s time to heal now. She has a lot healing to do.”
Mattei-Alvarado said she didn’t have any details to share other than when police called her at 10 p.m. letting her know Alvarado was at the Taylor Police Department.
Council Chairman Tim Woolley thanked Police Chief John Blair and all the officers in the department during a Jan. 19 city council meeting.
“When I got the news that Gloria was found I think every family in the city of Taylor, outside the city of Taylor got that emotion — you know especially anybody that has kids,” Woolley said. “I’ve known that family, I know her brother. I remember her as a little girl so please accept my deepest thanks for doing everything you guys did to help bring that and it was a great ending to a horrible story. I appreciate everybody that worked hard on this case.”
On Nov. 1, Mattei-Alvarado went to her daughter’s room to wake her up for school when she noticed the bedroom window was open and the screen window cut. Her cellphone was left behind on the bed.
She had last been seen by her parents at 9:30 p.m. Nov. 1 at their house in the 25000 block of Filmore Street.
Police were able to obtain a 14-second video clip from security camera at a neighbor’s house across the street that shows a car pulling up in front of the Alvarados’ house about 1 a.m. Nov. 2 and a man getting out before it ends.
Another Taylor teenager, Marisa Peters, 14, is still missing after disappearing from her grandmother’s house in May where she was last seen.
If anyone has information on Peters’ location call the Police Department at 734-374-1420 or Michigan United at 1-877-507-7774, Ext. 708.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected])