Missing teen found, Santa Rosa stepfather arrested in Nevada

A Crescent Metropolis teenager who had been lacking since July 2021 has been discovered, and her stepfather, a Santa Rosa man, has been arrested and brought into custody.

Katuana Nateya Whisenant, 14, was positioned Saturday afternoon in Churchill County, Nevada, throughout a routine site visitors cease by Nevada State Police. A trooper pulled over the car she was touring in together with her stepfather, Santos Flores-Roman, 39, of Santa Rosa. She was unhurt and wholesome, Crescent Metropolis Police Chief Richard Griffin stated.

Flores-Roman was arrested and charged on suspicion of retaining a toddler from their mother and father, Griffin stated.

“It’s like youngster abduction however completely different, as a result of she voluntarily ran away,” Griffin defined.

Whisenant’s mother and father had been alerted and have been touring from Crescent Metropolis to Nevada to choose her up, Griffin stated Saturday night.

“Since I’m a mother or father myself, I may think about what it will be like for my daughter to be gone that lengthy. I used to be glad to have the ability to make that decision to the mother and father,” he stated. “It was the best-case situation.”

Whisenant had run away from her mother and father’ residence in Crescent Metropolis to Santa Rosa the place her father stepfather had moved. Since she is a Yurok Indian, tribal police contacted the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which subsequently concerned the FBI within the investigation.

The FBI had scheduled a gathering with Flores-Roman, “and that’s when he took off,” Griffin stated.

“We had final positioned him in Chico based mostly on his license plate,” he added. “Then, out of the blue we get this name that they discovered her. We had an arrest warrant out on him.”

As a result of Flores-Roman had crossed state traces, it may turn into a federal case, Griffin stated.

Whisenant had beforehand run away from residence to be together with her stepfather, so Crescent Metropolis authorities have been certain she was there, he stated. They’d been working with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Workplace, the Santa Rosa Police Division and Sonoma County Probation to search out her.

“Everybody was attempting to find her, they usually have been doing home visits. She apparently was hiding in a journey trailer at his home,” he stated.

You may attain Workers Author Kathleen Coates at kathleen.coates@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5209.