Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The girl is staying at a youth shelter in New Castle.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
NEW BEDFORD, Pa. — A Lawrence County girl missing for two weeks has returned home safely.
Ashley Leasure, 14, was picked up Sunday night by her parents at a home on Youngstown’s South Side.
Mindy Leasure, her stepmother, said they received a call from Ashley’s 16-year-old boyfriend just before 10 p.m. that the girl was at his home and could be picked up.
“We arrived, and she was sitting on the porch,” Mindy Leasure said.
Ashley was last seen by her parents on the evening of Aug. 12 when she went to a birthday party in Youngstown with her boyfriend and his mother.
The boyfriend later told Ashley’s parents that she went to the bathroom during the party and never returned, but he waited 24 hours to call her parents about her disappearance.
Mindy and David Leasure called police about a half-hour after she missed her 9 p.m. curfew.
Mindy Leasure said her stepdaughter told them she met someone at the party and went home with that person. She claims to have been staying with that person the last two weeks.
Mindy Leasure said after they picked up Ashley on Sunday night they took her to the Northwest Regional Police Department, where she was first reported missing.
Police spoke to the girl and took her to Jameson Memorial Hospital here to have her physically checked. Ashley was then placed in the Krause Youth Shelter in New Castle, Mindy Leasure said.
“We are relieved that she is home. We’ve got a long road ahead of us. We’ve got to get to the bottom of what happened and why,” she said.
Ashley was listed as an endangered runaway by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her information was posted on their Web site, and the group distributed posters with her photograph and information to businesses in the area.
Northwest Police did not return calls to determine if there will be any criminal investigation into Ashley’s disappearance.
cioffi@vindy.com