Missing Shasta Girl Found Safe
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Shasta County teen reported missing a little more than a month ago was found safe in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
Fifteen-year-old-old Jean Marie Berlinghoff was found in the city's Mission District, San Francisco police spokesman Albie Esparza said.
Officers were called to the area when the girl's adult cousin, who lives in the city, just happened to see her, along with their uncle, around 1:44 p.m. Saturday, according to Esparza.
The uncle, 34-year-old Charles Berlinghoff, and a second adult male, gave phony names to the officers, said Esparza. But the cousin, who has not been named, confirmed their actual identity.
"She was at the right place at the right time and very observant," said Esparza.
Berlinghoff was taken into custody on a Shasta County warrant charging him with keeping his niece from her parents.
The teen was in protective custody. Esparza described her as in "good physical condition."
Authorities had been looking for the girl since she disappeared from her Redding home on Nov. 10.
Shortly after her disappearance, officials sought help in finding her by using electronic highway signs to notify drivers across Northern California.
A Northern California militia group also looked through caves, mines and cemeteries in a search for the girl.
The case is the second child abduction case in two days to be resolved in San Francisco.
Friday afternoon, 12-year-old Brittany Mae Smith and 32-year-old Jeffrey Scott Easley, the man accused in her abduction in Virginia, were found after being recognized in a store in San Francisco. The two hadn't been seen since Dec. 3, when they were captured on store surveillance video at a Walmart in Virginia.
"We want to acknowledge the witnesses because without them we would not have been able to make the arrests in these cases," said Esparza.
"We're just glad this is another case where the victim was able to return to her family safe and the suspect is in custody," he added.
Roanoke County police detectives were heading to San Francisco to work with California authorities and have the Virginia girl, who is in child protective custody, and Easley returned to Virginia.
The girl's mother and Easley's girlfriend, Tina Smith, were found dead on Monday in their southwestern Virginia home. The cause of death has not been released but police consider it a homicide.
Shasta County authorities were also headed to San Francisco to take Charles Berlinghoff into custody, Esparza said.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
