Mom Reunited With Teen Daughter Missing for 8 Years

Another teen was released kicking and screaming to Dorotea Garcia last month
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 15, 2015 10:24 AM CDT
Mom Reunited With Teen Daughter Missing for 8 Years
Alondra Diaz Garcia arrives for a court hearing in Los Reyes, Mexico, Tuesday, May 12, 2015.   (Miguel Garcia Tinoco via AP)

A Mexican prosecutor says DNA tests on Alondra Diaz match the US mother who has been searching for her for eight years. Jose Martin Godoy Castro said late yesterday that tests show Alondra is the daughter of Houston woman Dorotea Garcia, who has searched for the girl since Alondra's father took her to Mexico after she was awarded custody of the then 5-year-old. Garcia's search gained international attention last month after Judge Cinthia Elodia Mercado ruled that another teenager, 14-year-old Alondra Luna, was the missing girl and ordered her released to Garcia (the BBC notes the girls share a first name and have a somewhat similar facial scar). That reunion didn't go well: Video recordings circulated widely of Alondra Luna screaming and desperately resisting police after the court decision.

Alondra Luna had asked for DNA tests in Mexico before she was sent to the United States, and her parents presented more than a dozen documents including her baptismal records, family photographs, and a copy of her birth certificate. Elodia Mercado said in late April that it was not within her authority to order DNA testing. Garcia reunited with her real daughter late Tuesday in a courtroom in the western state of Michoacan. This BBC reports the real Alondra had appeared at the court with her aunt and grandmother a day prior; they said that after her father realized how much media attention was swirling around the case he decided she should go to court. The teen says she's been "happy with my dad, but at the same time I felt there was something missing." (These moms are also hoping reunions might be possible.)

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