LYNNWOOD – A 17-year-old Stanwood girl who has been missing since May returned home on Wednesday.
Gabriella Mercedes was found about 11:40 a.m. at a Lynnwood Taco Bell restaurant after she called her brother. A friend of her brother’s called 911, advising police where they could find the girl.
Mercedes told a Lynnwood police officer she ran away from home but wanted to return to her family, police spokeswoman Shannon Sessions said.
Mercedes was reported missing May 11 after she walked away from Stanwood High School. Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives were suspicious of her disappearance because she didn’t call her family to report her whereabouts.
Mercedes later called her mother in June from a pay phone in Shoreline. She reportedly said she was in Canada.
Her family searched the county for Mercedes, and distributed thousands of fliers.
On Wednesday, the girl appeared upset and told the Lynnwood officer she’d been with friends but she wanted to leave because they used drugs, Sessions said. She appeared clean and in good health, and was carrying a backpack and purse, Sessions said.
She was reunited with her mother at the Lynnwood Police Department.
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