Caller Leads Parents to Missing Child

A San Diego couple was reunited with their missing 18-month-old daughter, apparently abducted in Tijuana on Labor Day, after they received an anonymous call Saturday directing them to a church south of the border, authorities said.

Alexandro and Teresa Aguirre of the 2400 block of 40th Street in East San Diego had made numerous public appeals for their daughter, Sandra Veronica, after a witnesses reportedly saw a large-framed woman walk off with the child on Avenue Revolucion during a family trip to Tijuana last weekend.

“The parents were in a shoe store about 6 p.m. when the child apparently walked away,” said Bill Robinson, a police spokesman. “Then an eye-witnesses came forth with information about a Latino woman’s involvement.”

State Judicial Police in Baja California were handling the case but San Diego police said they received numerous reports that the child had been seen as far south as Rosarito Beach and as far north as a grocery store on University Avenue in San Diego.

“We received dozens of calls,” Robinson said. “That’s the way it is with children and pets, people call.”

The couple’s search ended Saturday when a woman, speaking in Spanish, told them that their daughter could be found at a church on Second Avenue in Tijuana, authorities said.

Sandra, the youngest of the couple’s four children, was unharmed and wearing the same outfit as when she disappeared, pink overalls, a white shirt and tennis shoes, authorities said.

Authorities were not sure if the caller was the same woman who apparently walked off with the child.