Missing Newport Beach eighth-graders found in Orange
Two Newport Beach eighth-graders missing since Saturday morning are home safely after they were found in Orange on Monday night.
Logan Rockwell, 14, and Jadyn Horin, 13, were seen by Logan’s grandparents near the corner of Tustin Street and Katella Avenue.
Logan’s mother, Amanda Rockwell, said she received a tip from a caller who had learned about the missing teens on Facebook. The caller described the two as wearing pink skateboard T-shirts.
“I knew that was him,” Rockwell said.
She said the grandparents pursued the lead and stopped the teens. The students’ parents picked them up around 6 p.m.
“After three days of not sleeping and not breathing, it’s overwhelming, the relief,” said Leisha Horin, Jadyn’s mother. “There’s that total panic of ‘Is it them, is it not them?’”
She said her daughter was sobbing and said she was sorry.
“I think once they both made it home they were relieved to be home,” Horin said.
Neither teen was at school Tuesday, their parents said. The two attend Ensign Intermediate in Newport Beach.
Logan and Jadyn are believed to have left together early Saturday with about $140. Police and their parents had been looking for them since. Rockwell posted fliers with the teens’ pictures at Volcom Skate Park in Costa Mesa and at other locations. Pleas to help find them were widely circulated on social media.
Over the weekend, the teens reportedly were seen in Costa Mesa at a Starbucks and at the movie theater at the Triangle commercial center.
Rockwell said her son was spending Tuesday taking down the fliers that his parents had posted.
“I think the gravity of this is sinking in for him,” Rockwell said. “I’m hoping this will turn into a positive for him and for other kids.”
On Monday, a school resource officer interviewed Ensign students asking for information about Logan and Jadyn’s whereabouts or plans, said Jennifer Manzella, spokeswoman for the Newport Beach Police Department.
Logan’s mother said the two had been in an “intense” relationship for months. They left their cell phones at their homes, and an unsent text message found on Jadyn’s phone stated: “Please do not come looking for me. I’m sending myself to my own boarding school on the street.”
But she also wrote that she planned to return home eventually. “When I do come back, I hope we still do everything like the Ariana Grande concert,” the message said.
Rockwell said her husband discovered that Logan was missing Saturday, and an older son drove to Jadyn’s house. She also was gone.
Newport Beach police were notified around 7 a.m., and the teens’ information was entered in state and federal missing-persons databases. Manzella said any missing person younger than 18 is considered “at risk.”