Missing Michigan teen recovered in California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A 14-year-old Michigan girl missing for 23 days was recovered safely and her convicted murderer companion arrested without incident Monday, after a Frito-Lay delivery driver recognized their disguised truck more than 2,000 miles from the girl's hometown.

Lindsey Diane Ryan, who left her house in Jones, Mich., on March 1, was inside the truck, along with the driver, Terry Drake, 56, said California Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick.

"She appears to be in good condition," Helmick said, adding that her blonde hair was dyed black as a disguise.

Lindsey's mother, Carol Ryan, walked into a news conference Monday afternoon in Cass County, Michigan, threw her hands up in the air and yelled, "Yay!"

"We have been waiting since March 1st to look into those (TV) cameras and say, Lindsey, we're coming to get you honey. We love you. I am so thankful that now we do know where you're at," she said.

Lindsey's father, Patrick, said the family was ecstatic.

"I don't know what else to even tell you but to tell you that we have no complaints, and never have had any complaints. It is a horrible situation that has a happy ending. You are looking at some very happy parents today," he said.

The CHP said in a statement that Ryan was cooperative and happy the incident was over, and was looking forward to being reunited with her family.

Though Drake had been considered heavily armed and dangerous, both he and Ryan were passive when they were arrested, Helmick said. The officer got Ryan out of the vehicle, then arrested Drake.

The pair's truck was spotted by the delivery truck driver about 9:50 a.m. at the Wayside Inn in Standish, Calif., a town of about 45 residents 90 miles northwest of Reno, Nev.

Drake had already raised the suspicions of clerk Deb Hunt by paying for his gasoline with a pile of change including a 1945 silver half-dollar and other old coins, said Wayside Inn manager Sue McMillin.

"A lot of people pay with change, but not $20 and not with real silver," McMillin said. "He said he'd lost his wallet and had to dig into his coin collection to get to Reno," where he said he intended to sell the collection.

About that time, Frito Lay driver Ian Spencer came in, having noticed that the formerly white 1995 Dodge Dakota pickup truck outside had been roughly and crudely spray-painted black, McMillin said. He'd also noticed the young woman inside, whom he said "seemed wary, kind of looking around a lot and didn't seem normal," McMillin said.

That's when Spencer called the CHP, which stopped the pair a few miles away four minutes later.

The pair was taken to the CHP's Susanville post. Both told police they'd been camping out in a mountainous area near Susanville, and said they'd be willing to take authorities to the campsite.

The pair was thought to have stopped in the Wayside Inn on Saturday as well, said McMillin. The inn had already turned over surveillance tapes to the CHP and sheriff's deputies when they showed up again, she said.

The CHP was flying two FBI agents to Susanville, and two more were en route from the FBI's Redding office to take custody of Drake on a federal warrant charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, said FBI spokesman Nick Rossi. Drake is expected to make an initial appearance Tuesday in Sacramento federal court.

Ryan left her home near Jones, a small town near the Indiana state line, early on March 1 to meet a short distance away with Drake, police said.

Drake, who is married, spent 16 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a woman from the Evansville, Ind., area, in 1977. He and Ryan met at church and, without her parents' knowledge, corresponded over the Internet.

The pair had been spotted three times in remote, mountainous regions of the Sierra Nevada range between California and Nevada, most recently nearly a week ago near Susanville.

That sighting came after the pair was featured on the "America's Most Wanted" television program. The viewer reported the pair was still in a white pickup truck when he saw them at a Susanville Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, about 75 miles northwest of Reno.

The pair previously was seen March 9 near Gila Bend, Ariz., where a truck driver helped them with a radiator problem. The trucker said he also noticed a rifle in the pickup. Drake told him that they were headed to San Diego to hunt wild boar.

They had previously been seen in Grass Valley and South Lake Tahoe, Calif., where they appeared to be heading east to Nevada, the FBI said.

News of the arrest came as Mark Klaas, father of 1993 kidnap victim Polly Klaas, was participating in a news conference backing an expansion of the Amber Alert system to state government Web sites.

"What a great day. Little Lindsey Ryan has been found alive," Klaas said.

Gov. Gray Davis, noting the interstate nature of the pair's journey, used the occasion to call for "a seamless national system," such as is pending in Congress.

"As Lindsey's case shows, sometimes criminals flee with our kids across state lines," Davis said. He planned an afternoon news conference to tout the success of California's Amber Alert system.

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On the Net:

The California Highway Patrol: http://www.chp.ca.gov

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Associated Press writer Jessica Brice contributed to this report.