The two teenage girls had been reported as runaways from an Arizona group home, police said.
Two teenage girls who were reported as runaways from a group home have been found dead in a water retention basin, Arizona authorities said.
The bodies of Sitalli Avelar, 17, and Kamryn Meyers, 15, were discovered Saturday after a man walking his dog reported to police he thought he saw a body, or possibly a mannequin, in the basin, Mesa police said.
Avelar and Meyers had been reported as missing on Jan. 7 from a group home in Mesa, police said. They were thought to have run away, authorities said.
"We take any case like this extremely seriously," Mesa Police Det. Richard Encinas told local station FOX10. "Most of us have children, most of us have teenagers around that age so we definitely feel the effects of that."
Investigators are trying to piece together how the girls ended up in the water. Autopsy results are pending, authorities said.
"What happened? I mean, that’s our number one goal, to figure out what occurred," Encinas said. "Our detectives have not stopped working on this case since Saturday. We don’t wait on a medical examiner's report to kind of guide us in a direction. Our investigators have been going nonstop at this since it happened."
The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the Mesa Police Department at 480-644-2211.
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