Girl Missing for 2 Days Turns Up at Dad’s House

A 10-year-old girl missing from her foster parents’ Anaheim home since Monday has been found safe with her biological father in Fullerton, police said Wednesday.

Erica Hernandez, who never returned from taking out the trash Monday morning at an apartment building in the 900 block of Roberts Street, showed up early Wednesday at the home of her father, who immediately called police.

“We sent a unit over to pick her up,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said. “She is in good shape and there is nothing wrong with her. She appears to have eaten and had someplace to stay out of the elements.”

Instead of being returned to her foster parents, however, the girl has been sent to Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange for further evaluation.

“Based on information that Erica has given us, it was determined that it would be best for social services to review where she will be staying,” Martinez said. “Until that is determined, she will be staying at Orangewood.”

The girl told police that after leaving the Roberts Street apartment Monday morning, she got on a bus and took it about five miles to Fullerton in the general vicinity of where her birth family lives, Martinez said. Erica told detectives that she had spent the last two days with her 16-year-old sister but would not divulge where.

“Apparently,” Martinez said, “the sister is not one to stay in one place. It appears that Erica may have been attempting to see her biological family--she left of her own free will, and as soon as an adult family member found her, he turned her in.”

Social service officials Wednesday were seeking the older sister.

Erica had been living with an aunt and her husband--Teresa and Jose Padilla of Anaheim--who had been given custody of Erica and her younger sister because of family problems. But she still longed for her birth parents, her aunt said after the girl disappeared.