An 18-year-old Tujunga teen whose family reported her missing to Los Angeles police early last week turned up Saturday night at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s station in Palmdale and has reunited with her parents, authorities said Sunday.
Verdugo Hills High School senior Lena Donabedian was reported missing after she had last been seen Oct. 27 getting into a light colored four-door sedan driven by two males after school in Tujunga, officials and family members said. She was last seen at the school in the 10600 block of Plainview Avenue and was missing for five days.
Donabedian told sheriff’s deputies Saturday that she went with two friends who were going to visit family members in Palmdale and that they dropped her off at her boyfriend’s house in the same city, said Sgt. Anthony Gunn, who was acting as watch sergeant for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Palmdale station on Sunday morning. She told deputies that “she attempted to contact her mom on Wednesday using her boyfriend’s phone” but “she was unable to contact her” for reasons that were unclear to Gunn, he said.
Donabedian called her mother on Saturday night “because she wanted to go home” and met her parents at the sheriff’s station, Gunn said.
Donabedian, who was interviewed by two different deputies, did not allege any foul play, he said.
Mother Sosi Donabedian said she was relieved to be reunited with her daughter. “Thank God she’s safe,” she said Sunday. “She’s with us. She’s OK.”
Family friend Michael DeWitte said friends initially believed that the guy she called her boyfriend was a passenger in the sedan that picked her up from school on Oct. 27. However, he said they no longer believe that to be the case.
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