Girl found.
A 10yearold is safe after being missing for more than 24 hours.
A 10yearold Aurora girl was found safe Tuesday afternoon more than 24 hours after she went missing, officers said.
Daniela RuanoMorales is receiving treatment, which is standard, police said.
She was found at about noon Tuesday in the Hoffman Heights Neighborhood, near East Sixth Avenue and North Peoria Street, by a distant relative. Police described her as being “safe” when found.
The girl’s family reported her missing at about 4 p.m. Monday after searching for her themselves. The girl’s mother had last seen her at 10 a.m. Monday in their home in the 1900 block of Elmira Street. Daniela told her parents that she was going to run away from home, Aurora police spokesperson Crystal McCoy said.
Daniela had never been reported as a runaway previously, McCoy said Tuesday at a news conference.
More than 100 law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies — including the FBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Denver Police Department — searched the area around the girl’s home. Searchers worked Tuesday to reach Spanishspeaking residents in the area. Investigators used drones and search dogs in their efforts.
Law enforcement used crime tape Tuesday morning to block off the street where Daniela was last seen. The tape was meant to control traffic in the area, McCoy said.
“The circumstances surrounding how she left is not suspicious,” McCoy said. “It’s just that she’s 10 years old and she’s been missing for a period of time.”
The girl’s mother walked the block at about 11 a.m. Monday asking if any of the neighbors had seen Daniela, said Raul Gonzalez, who lives across the street from the girl’s family.
“She was really freaking out,” Gonzalez said.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a missing and endangered notice at about 11 p.m. Monday night. McCoy said an Amber Alert had not been issued because there was no evidence that Daniela was abducted.
The girl’s family lives in the basement of a home they share with another family.
Christian Franco, who lives on the first floor of the home, said the family moved in about three months ago. Franco, who is a student at Central High School, said investigators wouldn’t let him out of the house to go to school Tuesday while the search continued.
Daniela was considered “missing and endangered,” primarily because of her young age, McCoy said. She said Daniela apparently left her home on her own after missing school Monday. McCoy did not know why Daniela had missed school.
Daniela’s family said she was upset Monday, but there had not been a fight.
Shunronika Lewis lives down the block and is part of a cohort of parents and grandparents who walk their kids to the bus every morning. Her grandson plays with Daniela and a host of other kids from the neighborhood nearly every day after school. Lewis stood on the sidewalk Tuesday afternoon, bouncing a baby in her arms as she watched police wrap up yellow tape and news trucks drive off the block.
“I prayed for that little girl,” Lewis said of Daniela. “This whole neighborhood did. We all watch out for each other around here.”