SEAL BEACH : Missing Girl, 16, Returns Home Safely

Police confirmed Thursday that a 16-year-old girl missing for eight weeks is back home after showing up at the city police station.

Maria Ana Marijanovic, a Los Alamitos High School honors student, disappeared Feb. 27 after she was seen leaving school with a 17-year-old Seattle youth whom she had met about three weeks earlier.

Police believe she was traveling with the youth during the time she was missing. The youth was questioned by Seattle police several weeks after Marijanovic disappeared and said he had last seen her in Seal Beach, according to Detective Bob Mullins.

“That turned out to be otherwise,” Mullins said.

Marijanovic, a member of the high school junior varsity volleyball team, traveled by Greyhound bus from Seattle to Los Angeles, where she was picked up by a friend and driven to the police station last Saturday, according to Mullins.

Police say they are not filing charges against the 17-year-old because there is no California law against harboring a runaway. But Washington has such a law, according to Mullins, who said Seattle police are considering charges.

The girl first met the Seattle teen-ager at a public tennis court across from her home in the College Park East neighborhood.

Her father, Tony Marijanovic, had searched for his daughter in Northern California and Washington. Her mother, Millie Marijanovic, said that the girl is in good condition but that she believes Seattle police should file charges against the youth.

“There was a lot of brainwashing involved,” her mother said.