LOS ANGELES — After her 16-year-old daughter disappeared, Marcila Avila waited in agony as time passed with no word.
On the 19th day, Alinka Angeline Castaneda called from a burner phone, saying she “was unable to leave her location.”
And then, more silence, punctuated by two more phone calls.
Avila estimates she passed out 7,000 fliers at beaches, malls and other places with photos of her blonde, dark-eyed girl.
On Monday, nearly four months after Alinka was seen entering a vehicle outside her Carson, California, home at 5 a.m. Jan. 1, a tip from an anonymous caller led Avila to a bench on the beach in Venice.
Alinka was sitting on the bench.
Back home with her mother and younger sister, Alinka still has not told her family what happened to her.
Avila said that Alinka is struggling with anxiety and depression, and counselors have advised her not to push for details.
“They said she’ll tell me when she’s ready,” Avila, 58, a cosmetologist, said at a news conference Wednesday. “It’s difficult, but right now, what I most care about is that she’s back and safe.”
Asked to describe Alinka, Avila said only that “she has changed a lot during this ordeal.”
Alinka has spoken to detectives, and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. John Silverstein said an investigation is “active.”
After the Jan. 19 call, Alinka called two more times from different burner phones, each time saying she was in an unknown place and didn’t know how to leave, said Moses Castillo, a retired Los Angeles Police Department detective who has been helping the family.
The phone from the first call was traced to a location several blocks inland from the Venice boardwalk — about 20 miles from Alinka’s home.
In an interview Sunday on NewsNation, Castillo said: “Dude, we know you have her. You’re an adult male. It’s time to just give her up.”
On Wednesday, Castillo offered no details on his theory that Alinka was held captive, saying he “did not want to interfere with an active investigation.”
But he said the NewsNation interview may have led to Alinka’s safe return.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the interview went out — and I put that interview on social media — and then the next day she was returned,” he said. “I think he was watching social media feeds.”
While her daughter was missing, Avila tried to keep her hopes up. She also prepared for the worst, visiting morgues and calling coroner’s offices in four counties.
When the anonymous call came Monday, Avila rushed to Venice with Castillo.
LAPD officers received a similar tip. They got there first and began interviewing Alinka.
“When I saw her sitting on a bench in Venice, I only wished I had wings to fly to her,” Avila said. “Since I didn’t, I ran as fast as I could to give her a hug, and thank God, she was safe.”
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