Cristy Yeutter Thanks Community For Bringing Daughter Home

Victoria Yeutter, , was located Wednesday, . In this open letter, mother Cristy Yeutter thanks the communities, local and online, that help locate her daughter to bring her safely home:

[Victoria's] dad and I are so grateful that she was found and is safe. A family member, with whom Victoria is close, flew out to California last night and is bringing her home this evening. We are also grateful for the outpouring of support and help from family and friends, and from complete strangers here and from around the world. It's been an amazing experience watching how posting on Facebook that a child is missing generates such immediate interest and concern. The post spread like wildfire in a matter of hours. In this situation it was invaluable, but in other circumstances (i.e., scandals) it would be frightening.
 
The person to whom we are most grateful is a good samaritan who sat next to Victoria on the Greyhound Bus from Union Station to Oklahoma. She and Victoria chatted. When the woman got off in Oklahoma, she went to her computer and looked up missing children. Victoria's poster was on the missing children's website, the woman saw it, and called Maryland police. I hope to be able to learn who this woman is. We think she is an angel sent by God to save Victoria's life. My husband and I think Victoria would have been in danger the moment she stepped off the bus in Long Beach, CA, and we likely would never have found her.
 
Det. Brenda Anderson of the Montgomery Police Department also was instrumental in finding Victoria. She was working many leads, but once the woman from Oklahoma called, Det. Anderson tracked down the Greyhound Bus number and its stops, and contacted the police in Blythe, CA, who retrieved her. Det. Anderson knew that we only had a few hours before the bus reached its destination, so she worked very quickly to make sure Victoria did not make it that far.
 
We are so grateful to everyone who dropped everything to help find our daughter. We hope one day soon that Victoria will realize that how dangerous her plan was. Other teenagers should learn from this experience as well.