Families search for missing girls

MISSION - Two families fear their daughters ran away from a Labor Day celebration with a man one of the girls met online.

Mission police and the FBI are investigating the disappearance of 13-year-old Alanah Villarreal, and 12-year-old Marissa Salinas. Relatives suspect the pair climbed out a window during a holiday celebration at a home near the intersection of Ricardo Street and Moorefield Road and fled.

"They snuck out through the window and we could not find her," Alanah's mother, Yvonne Villarreal, said of her daughter. "A suspect who is obviously being looked at called me last night. Supposedly (the girls) called him and told him they were in San Antonio."

The families immediately contacted police and even set up a Web site with descriptions and pictures of both girls. Alanah's mother said Marissa had met someone via the Internet and that the disappearance is somehow related to this person.

She said her own daughter is a typical teen whose only attempt at running away was fleeing to a friend's house a couple of blocks from the family's North McAllen home on one occasion.

Villarreal said authorities told them the girls are likely in San Antonio. Repeated phone calls to Mission police Lt. Martin Garza, a department spokesman, were not returned Wednesday evening.

Villarreal said her daughter met Marissa at the World Center Church at 2214 W. Griffin Parkway. She described the pair as acquaintances and not necessarily friends.

Efforts to speak with the Salinas family Wednesday evening were unsuccessful.

Family members of Alanah describe her as having long brown hair with blond highlights, brown eyes, about 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 150 pounds.

Marissa is described as having black hair, brown eyes, about 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighing close to 110 pounds.

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