An Indiana woman who vanished a month ago in California after a fight with her boyfriend has been found safe — after her family compared her disappearance to the high-profile search for Gabby Petito.
Lateche Norris, 20, was located unharmed in San Diego on Saturday, the San Diego Police Department said.
Cops said they determined the young woman “was not and is not the victim of any crime.”
Norris was located after sending her mother a text on a borrowed phone late Friday.
Her stepfather, Amir Walker, has since said Norris didn’t even realize people were looking for her because she’d been living on the streets with her boyfriend, Joseph “Joey” Smith, CBS8 reported.
He said Norris is “choosing to stay homeless” for now.
Norris’ mother, Cheryl Walker, launched a huge social media campaign and fundraising effort to track down her daughter.
Walker said she had last heard from her on Nov. 5 when the young woman called frantically to say she had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend.
The mother had claimed on social media that Smith had recently left a rehab facility.
“The last words my daughter said were, ‘I will, Momma, I promise I love you more,'” Walker said in a Facebook post earlier this month.
Walker drew comparisons to the search for Petito, the Long Island woman who was found dead in October after vanishing on a road trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie.
“My daughter is just as important as Gabby Petito,” Walker said at the time. “As if what happened to that sweet girl wasn’t heartbreaking enough.”
At one point, the mom slammed police for not doing enough to search for her daughter, saying that cops told her they didn’t believe Norris was “at risk” and that they “see this all the time.”
A GoFundMe page set up by Walker remains active and had raised more than $7,200 by the time Norris was found.
