It’s not often that a missing person is found alive, let alone more than 30 years after having disappeared. That is what happened to Christina Marie Plante, who was a child when she was last seen in 1994 in a small town northeast of Phoenix. The Gila County Sheriff’s Office announced April 1 that Plante was “identified following new leads” and was alive and well. There are at least 10 people who went missing out of Arizona as girls and have not yet been found, according to a database search on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Here’s everything we know about Plante’s disappearance, the efforts to find her so many years later and what other girls have been located after vanishing from Arizona.
Who is Christina Marie Plante? Plante, according to the Sheriff’s Office, was a 13-year-old known as “Tina” when she went missing the early afternoon of May 15, 1994, in the area of Star Valley and Payson, about 90 miles from Phoenix. She was described as blue-eyed with sandy hair. There was an “extensive search” by law enforcement and volunteers to locate Plante at the time of her disappearance, the Sheriff’s Office added.
How did Christina Marie Plante go missing? Plante was last seen walking to a stable to feed her horse, according to a flyer shared by the Sheriff’s Office. A flyer on Plante, published Oct. 23, 1994, in the Pennsylvania newspaper The Morning Call, described her case as an abduction by a stranger, a clipping on Newspapers.com showed.
How was Christina Marie Plante’s case solved? Plante was identified following new leads that were developed through “advances in technology, modern investigative techniques, and detailed case review,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Where is Christina Marie Plante now? As of April 2, it remained unclear when and where Plante was initially located, or where she is now. There was no indication she was reunited with loved ones. “Out of respect for Christina’s privacy and well-being, additional details will not be released at this time,” the Sheriff’s Office said in an April 1 statement.
What other Arizona girls were found after going missing for years? Plante is not the only case in which law enforcement discovered an Arizona missing person alive and well years later. Alicia Navarro, for example, was reported missing in 2019 and located in Montana in 2023. Edmund Davis, connected to Navarro’s disappearance, was sentenced to 100 years in prison. Another case involved Marina Ramos and her daughters, who were located after more than three decades. Ramos and her daughters were found through DNA samples and were eventually adopted and raised together by a Ventura County couple.
