Police said Tanvi Marupally, a 15-year-old, was found harmless after a Tampa native shared a hint with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Officers with the Tampa Police Department said their agency received an update from the Conway Police Department around 1:00 PM.
Later, officers in Tampa rushed to the John F. Germany library, where they found the missing girl.
The police noted that Tanvi appeared healthy and uninjured.
Police said Tanvi’s parents had been notified, and Conway police are working with the law enforcement team in Tampa and the United States of America Marshals Service to bring her back home.
Tanvi had been last seen on January 17, 2023, near Conway Junior High School. Her family, friends, and the whole community had been functioning since that time to find the missing teen.
Tanvi’s parents went through a surveillance video from businesses near the school as law enforcement tracked down local and more far-reaching tips.
There had been many searches, a reward fund was raised, and the town was blanketed with flyers trying to find out more information on where the teen may be.
Earlier this month, in March, the entire community hosted a celebration for the missing teen, who turned 15 while still away from her house, friends, and family.
The community had worked together in hopes of finding the missing teen, and the search had gained national attention.
An activist Derek Van Voast said, “Have you heard about Tanvi? And I said, no. I said who is that? And they told me about this child that was missing.”
Voast is an Arkansan who traveled across the country advocating for different people, and at that time, he was with the Tanvi Marupally family.
He said, “I set up a meeting with the mayor, the police chief, and several other people, and we had a meeting, about a three-hour meeting, and I thought what I was gonna get out of that meeting was enough to tell the families hey, they’re doing their part.”
He explained how that was not the case, and instead, there had been more queries than answers as time had gone on.
He further said, “The fact that we’re here 70 days later, whatever, and we still don’t have an amber alert I mean, I learned from my understanding the state police just heard about it three weeks ago. There’s got to be something I’m missing.”
Van Voast had been in contact with Tanvi’s family and said that the past weeks had not been easy for them.
Van explained that he and other activists planned to take action and said, “This child needs help. This family needs answers.”
He also noted that there were good enough grounds they had to go for a lawsuit against law enforcement about how they handled it from the very beginning.
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