Subject of Search Returned Home

An East County girl's family that sought media attention to locate a teenager last seen two weeks ago, announced through a Facebook message that the girl has returned home.

Sixteen-year-old Maylona Franco was last heard from April 30, according to her family, when she called her father and said she would be home in a couple of hours.

"She has never done anything like this," Kristie Franco said Monday. "She always calls. It's hard not to think of the worst."

Around 5:30 p.m. Monday evening, a post was added to the group’s Facebook page, “Maylona is home, Thank you everyone for everything. We have no details and we ask that you respect Maylona and her families [sic] privacy. As far as we know Sipriana is still not found that we have been told. Updates will follow with that information as it comes.”

The same woman who posted that news spent the evening monitoring posts from friends of the group wanting – and sometimes demanding – to know where the teenager had been while her family, friends and strangers searched for her.

“Anyone who makes unwanted or disrespectful comments regarding Maylona or her family will be reported, deleted, and blocked," said a post to the Facebook page. "Please be respectful of the family and thier [sic] need to heal. It is no one's business "what happened", it shouldn't even be a thought in anyone's head aside from THANK GOD SHE IS HOME.”

According to the same Facebook group, the girl told her father she was at a party in Escondido when she last called him. The Facebook page also said the teen's cousin Sipriana Fierro, who is also missing, was with her on the night of April 30.

Family members and friends posted fliers on cars in the neighborhood, as well as on street signs and the front doors of Chaparral High School, in El Cajon, which Maylona attends.

A school official said Monday, however, that at least one of Maylona's friends had spoken with her on the phone since her disappearance. 

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