Missing girl found safe in Chiang Mai

The aunt of the missing girl talks to reporters Thursday about the disappearance of her 14-year-old niece, at the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok. (Photo by Pornprom Satrabhaya)

UPDATE A missing 14-year-old schoolgirl from Bangkok was found safe late Thursday in Chiang Mai. The family are awaiting details and a reunion.

The worried family had asked the Crime Suppression Division to find the 14-year-old girl who had been missing for 15 days. Their names have not been released.

Police said they detained a 52-year-old Chiang Mai man in connection with the case. A Thai-language newspaper report said the man’s daughter could be involved.

The girl’s father and his sister had only informed the CSD on Thursday of the disappearance of the bright junior secondary student from Bangkok.

Before the discovery of the girl, her aunt told the media that her niece was last seen riding in a tuk-tuk in Bangkok about 2pm on Dec 27, and logged into her Facebook account from Rayong the following day. The family had not been able to contact her since.

School friends told the family that the girl had not gone on a New Year vacation with them. However, she did not have a boyfriend or any friend outside her school that they knew of, the aunt said.

“My niece is a good girl and thrives at school. Her exam results are always the best in her class. Her parents had her care for her siblings after school and she couldn’t go out with friends and attend tuition after classes as she wished,” the aunt said.

The girl has two brothers, aged six and eight years.

About two months before her disappearance, the girl began looking at her parents differently, as if she had some secret, she said.

“I think someone is behind her disappearance, someone my niece maybe trusts. She does not have enough money to keep away from police on her own. She might have contacted somebody online,” the aunt said.

The family had suspicions about five or so people around the same age as the girl’s father, she added.