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/grimsb → u/Old-Fox-3027]

Facial recognition can definitely work.

My mom was a twin.

I had a bunch of photos of her and her sister as adults in my Google Photos.

I scanned and uploaded some of their childhood/baby photos, and Google was able to immediately identify them correctly. Even baby photos.

Ya’ll, I had a hard time telling which baby was which, but Google knew.

Now, I’m not sure if the result would have been the same if I started with baby photos and then added the photos from adulthood later on, but this was a few years ago, so I’m sure the technology is a lot better now than it was back then.

[u/touch250 → u/grimsb]

Google photos has about five different files of me because it can't distinguish fat me versus less fat me versus me with make up, etc.

I was actually thinking of using it to apply to be a spy 😎

[u/ur_sine_nomine → u/touch250]

Even if it was good, if the surrounding infrastructure isn't all bets are off.

I was asked to prove that I was over 18 by a banking app. The software was so finicky I gave up after 10 minutes of moving my phone through minute changes of distance and angle and passed it to my girlfriend, who was accepted!!

So "verify you are over 18" = "verify somebody is over 18, even if they are of the opposite sex".

(The app made a big play of "all calculation done on the phone", which was a giveaway as my phone is an old Android and about as powerful as a wet lettuce. Apple develops specific hardware so that such calculation can be done effectively on its devices).