by Staff | Aug 20, 2012 7:21 pm

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Three weeks after a 15-year-old went missing, city detectives found her safe and sound at a friend’s house on Edgewood Avenue, according to Assistant Police Chief Archie Generoso.

The girl, Leah Jackson (pictured), went missing since July 28. Her family feared she had arranged to meet an older man known as “Johnny” with whom she had conversed on Facebook. Police and the family issued several calls for public help in tracking her down.

Police got a break over the weekend when Leah was caught on camera as she and some friends made a purchase at Target in Milford, Generoso said. Detective Rosealee Reed, who led the case, traced the credit card that was used in the purchase to an address in New Haven. The address was a year old, but it started a trail police were able to follow.

The Target lead was the result of fliers put up by the family, said Leah’s mom, Shari Muhammad. A Target employee saw the fliers the family had put up about Leah’s disappearance, Muhammad said.

That trail led to a home on Edgewood Avenue, where police found Leah Monday around 4:40 p.m., according to Generoso. Leah was safe with a friend and that friend’s family.

“There was nothing nefarious,” Generoso said. “She was staying with a female friend her age she had found on Facebook. She was sitting watching TV.”

Muhammad said on Tuesday that she had been telling cops from the beginning that Leah was with her friend Daisy, but she didn’t know where Daisy lived.

She said the family still doesn’t have a clear sense of why Leah ran away. “She just shrugged her shoulders.”

It took a while for Leah to understand just how worried her parents had been, Muhammad said. She said she took Leah to the hospital on Monday to get checked out, then came home late at night. When Leah saw the fliers her parents had made and posted around town, she started crying and saying, “I’m so sorry,” Muhammad said.

“It took her a while to process everything, to come back to herself,” Muhammad said. “We don’t know what she endured.”