ROCKFORD, Mich. — Two months after a teenage girl from Cedar Springs walked away from home, authorities shed light on how she avoided detection for so long.
Penelope "Penny" Wise, 17, walked away from her home the evening of May 31 after a "disagreement" with her parents, law enforcement said. The search for her involved the FBI, US Marshalls, Rockford police and community members.
She was spotted on Rockford surveillance cameras the next day near the Corner Bar.
Then this weekend, a community member spotted her leaving a Rockford home on a bicycle and called authorities.
Detectives found she had met a 44-year-old Rockford man around 2 a.m. on June 1, just hours after she went missing. The man was a stranger, according to detectives.
Wise then lived with him at his home until she was found. She told investigators that she and the man were engaged.
At this point, investigators believe she was willingly staying with the man, and they were actively working to avoid detection by concealing her identity and location. At the time, they weren't cooperating with law enforcement to reunite her with her family.
"Everything that we know right now is that it was just happenstance. They never had any connection. There was no digital trail that we could have followed that would have led to this location. They just happened to meet each other and have a bond," Kent County Undersheriff Brian Muir said.
Authorities said there are no charges expected in the case at this time.
"We don't believe we have any criminal charges that we authorized. We are going to complete our investigation, finish off our reports, and make sure those reports are available for the prosecutor to have one more review before any determination is made," Muir said. "But at this point, we're not seeing any criminal charges that he'll be responsible for, and this investigation is going to be closed at that point."
Muir said Monday afternoon that the teenager is still in their custody before they reunite her with her parents.
"We really can't get into what she's in custody for, because she is a juvenile still in the eyes of the law, but she hasn't been reunited back with the family. We're just trying to connect her with services before she makes it back home," he said.
Wise's parents spoke to 13 ON YOUR SIDE on Sunday, saying that it was a relief knowing she was found safe.
“It's surreal knowing that she's been found,” said Mishael Wise, Penelope's mother. "We still haven't been able to lay eyes on her, so I think once we're able to actually see her it will sink in even more. We are very relieved that she's been found.”
After being missing for nearly two months, Penny’s father David Wise said the family is still processing the difficult weeks of not knowing where she was.
“It’s still so fresh at this point that we haven't even really been able to come to grips with this is actually happening in a good way,” David Wise said. "We've had months and months of this happening to us, but now all of a sudden, she's been found and it still has a little bit to sink in on its own yet.”