Missing Arkansas teen Tanvi Marupally, who may have feared deportation to India, has been found safe in Florida, authorities said. She disappeared in January.
A missing Arkansas teenager, who may have feared deportation to India, has been found safe and healthy in Florida after being gone for nearly three months, authorities said.
A nationwide search was launched for the girl, who was 14 when she was reported missing Jan. 17. She was last seen walking away from her school bus in Conway, where she lived with her parents. A tip to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children led to her being found in a Tampa library, police said.
"They recognized a situation. They may have recognized the child. They took a quick picture and sent it to our call center," John Bischoff, vice president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, told KTHV-TV.
Tampa police said Wednesday they found the girl, who turned 15 while she was missing, at the John J. German library and she appeared well and uninjured.
Authorities are working to bring the girl home.
Tanvi was a good student who excelled academically, had been frightened that her father, a tech worker, was going to lose his job amid massive layoffs in that field, her family said when she went missing.
Sridevi Eadara and Pavan Roy Marupally said earlier this month that deportation was no longer a concern. The parents posted a YouTube video pleading for their only daughter to come home.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children had also launched a campaign to find the girl, with her face flashed on gas pump screens throughout Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Missouri.
Spokeswoman Rebecca Steinbach said the effort was aided by the town of Conway, which held vigils and rescue searches to find the missing teen.
"You wish every community with a missing child would respond the way Conway has," Steinbach said when the campaign was launched early this month.
On Wednesday, Bischoff praised the Tampa woman who reached out to the center's tip line.
"In reality, all it really takes is one set of eyes to be a hero and that citizen is it today," he said.
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