‘Chronic runaway’ left for school Jan. 6 and hasn’t been back
home since that time
Gilroy – Corinna Duarte left her home for school at El Portal Leadership Acadmey Friday, Jan. 6. She hasn’t been back since.
Richard Siqueiros spent Monday posting flyers at several Gilroy late night hang outs with phone numbers and photographs, searching information about the whereabouts of his 15-year-old daughter who has been missing for more than a month.
“The unknown is a terrible thing,” he said.
Police consider Rodarte a chronic runaway. She has left home several times since the eighth grade, sometimes for days and weeks at a time. However, she has never been gone this long, and never not contacted her 12-year-old sister to let her know she was OK.
The sophomore was dropped from El Portal for missing more than a month of school. Prior to her running away, she recently got in trouble with police for drinking.
“I think maybe she’s scared to come back,” Siqueiros said.
According to her father, Rodarte has been hanging out with an older crowd lately and communicating with them using code names on her MySpace account. He believes she may staying with an older boyfriend somewhere in town.
“She’s real low profile, she never wants me to know who she hangs out with,” he said.
Siqueiros has been raising his two children on his own after their mother died more than a decade ago. He noticed his daughter change from a typical teen to more rebellious and running away.
Siqueiros believes the cause of her troubles may be the death of her mother.
Siqueiros has received tips from people who have spotted her around town. Most of the time it isn’t her, or she is gone by the time he arrives, he said.
“Experienced runaways are very good at making themselves (disappear),” said Gilroy Police Investigations Sgt. Noel Provost.
Chronic runaways often return on their own volition.
“Very frequently (runaways) think that they will find something better,” Provost said. “But after a couple of days they’ll find that home wasn’t so bad.”
According to Siqueiros, Rodarte frequents the neighborhood near South Valley Middle School. She is 5-foot-one-inches, 110 pounds, with dark hair and green eyes. She frequently dyes her hair. Rodarte has a heart tatoo on her left hand.
“She can come home anytime she wants to,” he said. “Right now she probably thinks the whole world is against her, I just want her home.”
Contact police at 846-0350 with her whereabouts. Take notice people and vehicles she is with, in addition to the place and time. Contact Richard Siqueiros at 417-6371.
