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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Wednesday, June 12, 2002

Missing teenager returns safely

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — A 16-year-old California girl reported as missing by her parents last weekend returned safely to their hotel Monday night, her father said yesterday.

Kimberly Ewing told her parents she spent parts of six days — last Wednesday to Monday — with a youth group she identified as Teen Challenge, Tom Ewing told The Advertiser.

"She ran off with them," he said.

The family was staying at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel when Kimberly disappeared last Wednesday. She was subsequently spotted twice at the luxury hotel, then dropped out of sight after Friday.

On Monday she phoned her parents at the hotel, then returned to the hotel, escorted by a member of the group, Tom Ewing said. That was two days after Hawai'i County police issued an all-points bulletin and assigned four officers to the missing-persons case, and the same day an Advertiser story and photo about Kimberly's disappearance was published.

Kimberly and her parents were scheduled to fly home yesterday to San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

It was not clear if the group named by the Ewings is Teen Challenge Hawaii, a Honolulu-based, nonprofit organization that supports youths and adults trying to end dependence on drugs and alcohol.

A person who answered the Teen Challenge statewide phone line yesterday declined to answer questions. Calls by The Advertiser to Teen Challenge Hawaii's Honolulu phone numbers were not returned yesterday.

A group of fund-raisers for Teen Challenge visited the Big Island last week, police said.

Ewing thanked Big Island police and others for helping to bring his daughter, a high-school sophomore, back to the family.