Missing Monterey Park teen found safe outside local TV station

A missing Monterey Park teen was found safe Tuesday outside a TV station’s Glendale offices.

There was no sign of foul play around the disappearance of Alison Jillian Chao, according to Jose Romero, an attorney retained by Alison’s father, Jeffrey Chao.

Romero said at a news conference Tuesday that the 15-year-old had left home “on her own accord on her bicycle” July 16 and showed up a week later at the Los Angeles-based KABC-TV site in Glendale on her own.

Her father said Tuesday that Alison is “a very intelligent person and she’s a godly person with a really good heart.”

Alison was being interviewed Tuesday by the Monterey Park Police Department, and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services had been contacted, according to Romero. Her family had yet to meet or speak with her as of Tuesday afternoon.

A Glendale woman who declined to give her name out of privacy concerns told The Times on Tuesday that she saw a girl who resembled Alison slip by a security guard at the KABC offices in Glendale and alerted him. She said she heard the girl say she wanted to tell the news station her side of the story.

Romero declined to comment on a YouTube video circulating online in which Alison refuses to go to a “facility” at the behest of her parents, apparently the day before she disappeared.

“Based on current litigation in family law court, whenever there’s a minor involved, there’s layers of protection afforded to the minor,” Romero said. “It cannot be commented on based on pending litigation.”

A Monterey Park Police Department spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that officers were interviewing Alison and continuing to investigate the case.

Alison had reportedly left her home in the 200 block of North Ynez Avenue in Monterey Park at 5:32 p.m. July 16. Monterey Park police initiated a missing-person investigation at 9:36 p.m. that evening, according to a department news release.

The teen was riding a blue mountain bike en route to her aunt’s house in nearby San Gabriel, her family told KTLA.

The trip should have taken about 20 minutes, but her aunt called Jeffrey Chao around 8 p.m. to let him know his daughter still hadn’t arrived.

Alison’s mother, Annie Chao, had released a statement on Instagram on Monday.

Police had informed her of her daughter’s disappearance after Alison’s father reported her missing. The teen was scheduled to be taken to her mother’s home that Wednesday morning.

“Please remember that Alison is a child,” Annie Chao said in the statement. “I kindly ask that you do not speculate, attack or post anything that does not assist in the effort to find her.”