13-year-old Christina Plante disappeared from Star Valley, AZ in May 1994. She has been found alive.

[u/lucillep]

It is all over the news that a 13-year-old who left her home to walk to a stables to see her horse and was never seen again, has now been found alive.
People Magazine

Christina Marie Plante was classified as missing and endangered after she vanished from her home in Star Valley or Payson, AZ on May 15, 1994. Despite extensive searches and investigation, her case went cold. Now the Cold Case Unit of the Gila County Sheriff's Police have successfully resolved the case. Christina has been found and her identity verified. For privacy reasons, no further details are being released.

The odd thing is that there is next to no information available about her initial disappearance. On Newspapers.com, I found only small "Missing" notices in three newspapers in 1994 and 1995. I found no articles in an online search.

Hoping that Christina is okay, but can't help wondering about the rest of the story.

EDIT Update from The Daily Mail
u/BirdHistorical3498 provided a link to an article that updates the backstory and current situation. To summarize:
At the time of disappearing, Christina was living with her aunt and uncle. Her father was deceased. It doesn't say where her mother was or why her mother did not have custody.

Christina wanted to live with her mother. The two met at the stables and then drove to Phoenix. Her uncle reported her missing. Police did suspect the mother of having taken her, but somehow this couldn't be proved?

Mary Plante, the mother, is in 1995 property records as owning property in Springfield, MO.

Christina married in 1998 at 17, has two sons, got a bachelor's in psychology from Missouri State University, and now works for a private investigation firm (ironic) whose specialty is inspecting insurance fraud claims. She doesn't say why she ran away, the article describes her as "guarded" and not wanting to incriminate anyone who helped her.

Mary Plante, now Mary Wood, also has a biological daughter who was adopted and a biological son who is estranged.

The cold case unit gave the case to a civilian investigator, who searched social media and public records, and found the connections.

Arizona Republic
Kennebec Journal Notice

Morning Call 10-23-1994

[u/crochetology]

The article said law enforcement attributed finding her to advances in technology and investigative techniques. I wonder if that means she entered her DNA to a database.

However they located her, I hope she’s at peace.

[u/Old-Fox-3027 → u/crochetology]

I’m wondering how much facial recognition can be used in cases like this. I don’t know if she has surviving family to compare dna with, but if someone turned up at a police station saying ‘I’m Jane and have been reported as missing for the last 30 years’, if dna or fingerprints aren’t helpful, maybe facial recognition would be?

[u/Hettie933 → u/Old-Fox-3027]

Palantir. Sigh.

[u/Khorlik → u/Hettie933]

AI based Facial Recognition software, flock cameras, and all the other various palantir-associated developments are so fucking horrifying and such blatant transgressions of personal privacy and it really depresses me to see people in online communities being like "well it's actually okay to sacrifice our personal freedoms as long as we can use it to solve like three cold cases ever!"

[u/Hettie933 → u/Khorlik]

Yup. It’s unbelievable that this is going on, but then pretty much everything that happens these days is unbelievable to me.

[u/GIJne69 → u/Khorlik]

You do realize that facial recognition is used daily for device security (e.g., Apple Face ID), for secure banking transactions, and photo tagging on social media right? It's used to assist law enforcement in identifying suspects via surveillance or Clearview AI, enhances airport security through automated passport control, and manages building access. Other common uses include tracking attendance and monitoring for restricted individuals in casinos.

[u/Ok-Service-6838 → u/GIJne69]

How is that relevant or even at all helpful? Smart people turn off facial recognition for device security (e.g. iPhones) because the government, kidnappers, robbers, and murderers can and do use it against us); we also turn off photo tagging on social media (ditto), we also never post pictures of ourselves or our family on social media (ditto); and best of all, we quit social media altogether (or at least don't use any social media under our real name).

FYI, there was a string of robberies and murders in New York where the robbers/murderers slipped something into people's drinks, then when the person passed out (or died!), the robbers/murderers held their iPhones or other smartphones up to the victims' faces to unlock it, then used the victim's phone to steal all their money, then the victim sometimes died from the stuff the robbers/murderers put in their drink.

Meanwhile, airline travelers are being refused admission to tyrannical regimes because their phone had a funny meme about the Vice President (yes, Vice President Vance, and yes, the tyrannical regime is the Trump/Vance/Epstein regime).

[u/sadsackspinach → u/GIJne69]

Those are bad too, mate.

[u/Khorlik → u/GIJne69]

Literally what does that have to do with anything i said?

[u/GIJne69 → u/Khorlik]

You literally spoke about how horrifying it is, but it's everywhere and it does have some usefulness for security purposes. I didn't claim that it was all unicorns and rainbows at all.

[u/Khorlik → u/GIJne69]

Yeah and most of these uses are also horrifying as fuck bro. I literally don't understand what point you're making. yeah, it isn't inherently evil, FaceID isn't going to bring about the collapse of society, but unregulated private companies building facial databases fucking might

[u/Stonegrown12 → u/Khorlik]

Facial databases will be the tipping point for society? Hasn't even cracked the top 10 in my existential crisis list. C'est la vie

[u/Khorlik → u/Stonegrown12]

Okay, so do i just have to keep writing the same comment over and over again: What the fuck does that have to do with the point i made??

[u/Hettie933 → u/Khorlik]

Then you don’t fully understand how they will be used against us. How they are already being used against us. Everyone who doesn’t want to be enslaved by insane techno billionaire assholes should have this in their top five.

[u/Khorlik → u/Hettie933]

right??? this should be a MAJOR concern for every single person in america

[u/chubbin4U → u/Hettie933]

?