Mother, run-away teen reunite after phone call
Someone did what Wendy Anderson hoped they would if they spotted her 14-year-old daughter; they called police. Jessica “Jessie” Marie Anderson, who was missing for two weeks, was reunited with her family on Sunday.
Her mother said that someone spotted Anderson walking along Route 51 and then called state police. Jessica Anderson was headed toward a pay phone to call her mother to tell her that she was ready to come home.
“She was done with it. She wanted to come home,” Wendy Anderson said.
After receiving the call, Anderson headed for the gas station to get Jessica, but, by the time she arrived, the police were already there. Police said they found Jessica around 9:30 a.m. at the Exxon station.
“I hugged her and cried,” Wendy Anderson said. “I couldn’t do much because she was in the back of a police car. They told me to follow them to the (police) station.”
Jessica and Wendy were reunited at the state police barracks in Uniontown. The two returned to their Jumonville Road home in North Union Township.
By Sunday afternoon, Jessica was taking a bath as her mother, over the phone, expressed her joy that her daughter was safe at home.
“She’s OK. She’s not telling where she was,” Anderson said. “I’m really glad she’s here and she’s fine because I began to think the worst.”
Although the teen is without scratches or bruises, her mother said she will have to undergo counseling.
Anderson noted that state police interviewed Jessica, adding that if she were to runaway again, she would face punishment from police.
“She told me whoever she was with just fed her and gave her a place to stay,” Wendy Anderson said.
Jessica, she said, doesn’t want to reveal whom she stayed with because she’s afraid the person will get in trouble. Her mother suspects, however, that a man about 18 to 20 years old caught her daughter’s fancy.
Wendy Anderson previously said that her daughter never before ran away or got in trouble with police.
“She seems to think I need to be less strict. When I was that age, I was at home playing with Barbie dolls.”