Missing Girls Weren’t Seized, Police Believe

Two teenage girls missing since Feb. 20 have been tracked to several addresses and investigators do not believe they were abducted, a Santa Ana police spokesman said Friday.

The families of Cristine Chacon and Gissela Flores, both 15, have complained that investigators are not doing enough to find the girls. But detectives are doing everything they can, Officer Mario Corona said.

Chacon and Flores, freshmen at Santa Ana High School, went to school Feb. 20 but did not return home.

Neither girl has a history of running away, but police do not believe they were taken against their will or are the victims of foul play, Corona said.

“We don’t label them as runaways,” he said. “We label them as not being home. We’ve been to different addresses where they have been seen since they disappeared.

“The girls are still out on the streets, and we’re doing everything we can to find them,” he said.

Corona declined to say where the girls have been spotted or whom they were with. He also refused to say why they might have left home. Calls to the girls’ homes were not returned.