A teenager who had been missing for two days in central Alberta was found alive Saturday night shortly after hundreds of people held a candlelight vigil for her.
The 16-year-old girl went missing Thursday night after she drove to a nearby store to buy some juice wearing pyjamas and a coat.
The girl's father would only say that she escaped from her captors and phoned home from a mall.
"She's very, very scared," he said. "She told me she had to beg for her life."
RCMP said she was found at Bower Place Shopping Centre in Red Deer at about 8:30 PM. Mounties said they were interviewing her about the 46 hours she was missing.
Police would not release any information. It was not clear if they were treating her disappearance as a kidnapping or if they were searching for suspects.
A woman at the mall told the Red Deer Advocate that she may have seen the girl calling home.
"I saw a woman on the phone crying, and then a police officer took the receiver and said something, and then they took her away in a police car," said Patricia Reay, who was waiting to use the pay phone.
Ms. Reay said the woman had a bandage on her face and appeared extremely distraught.
Relatives got the news that she had been found alive while driving home from the candlelight vigil that was held outside of a Red Deer high school.
"She has been found and this is the best day ever," the girl's aunt said.
"We have her back and we are so glad. This is the best day.
"We are so excited. This is just so amazing. People have been so good. There is clearly a bad apple out there."
The teen was only gone from home for 20 minutes on Thursday when her family found her truck parked in front of their Penhold, Alta., home with the keys inside and the lights on.
Her purse and the items she bought at the store were also in the truck, but her wallet and cellphone were gone.
Police and volunteers combed the area around the teenager's home on Saturday. A Facebook website was has also set up to glean information on her whereabouts.
Earlier Saturday RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb said police spoke to two men whom they believed had information — one seen on the store's surveillance video talking to the girl, the other spotted outside the store.
Both were later interviewed by police and eliminated as suspects.
During the day dozens of family, friends and volunteers distributed posters that bear the teen's photo.
The girl's uncle said he hoped the effort would encourage his niece, wherever she may be, adding her family was growing increasingly anxious.
"It's tough — everyone is starting to break down a bit."
Crews also scoured an area near Red Deer, where signals from the girl's cellphone were detected about five hours after she disappeared.
Sgt. Webb said there were no indications of foul play, but also no explanation for the disappearance of the teen, who has been described as a good student from a stable family.
"We are not going to call it foul play, but extremely suspicious," he said.
"She's a good kid and right now we don't have any plausible explanations."
