Teenager missing in suspicious circumstances in Vancouver found safe

UPDATE: Vancouver police say missing teen has been found safe in the city. She was located after an observant citizen spotted her.

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VANCOUVER, Wash. — Vancouver police are searching for a 16-year-old girl who was last seen at the Vancouver Mall on Tuesday and say she disappeared under suspicious circumstances.

The boy identifies as female, according to the Vancouver Police Department.

Police said his cellphone was found just outside the mall. They also found the sweatshirt she was wearing in a trash can.

The girl was last seen wearing this light pink sweatshirt with “My pronouns are they/they” written on the front in purple letters.

The girl's mother, Lavona Anderson, was handing out missing persons flyers Tuesday evening in the mall parking lot. She said the sweatshirt was special because it identifies pronouns and uses and that she would never get rid of it because it was the first item of clothing she received as a transgender girl.

She told KATU News they went to the mall as a family and the daughter went to do her own shopping.

She was supposed to meet her mother at their truck to pick her up at 1:05 p.m. Anderson said she texted him at 12:53 p.m. and the girl responded. But by 1:18 a.m., the girl had not shown up and Anderson said she began tracking her phone. That took her first to the Macy's parking lot, then to the intersection of Thurston and Vancouver Mall Drive.

“I drove to Popeye's parking lot and started pinging their phone through Find My iPhone, and found the phone in a bush across the street from the road. street of Voodoo Donuts,” Anderson said. “They would never leave their phone.”

The girl also wore white/blue joggers and black and blue sandals.

She has shoulder-length reddish-brown hair and is probably wearing diamond earrings.

She is approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 110 pounds.

Police said she was extremely shy and might be uncomfortable talking to people she doesn't know.

“This incident is being treated as an extremely suspicious incident and is currently being investigated with high priority and all available resources,” Vancouver police said in a news release.

Anyone with information on the girl's whereabouts or disappearance is asked to call Vancouver police immediately.