Runaway Children

A nationwide study of runaway youths has found that more than a third had been in foster care in the year before they took to the streets. In California, the percentage was even higher, topping the nation with 45% saying they had been in foster care in the last 12 months. Survey director Deborah Bass said these findings were the "most disturbing" to emerge from a study of 170 runaway shelters. The average age of runaways is 15.

Adriana says she looks a lot like a man she doesn't know: her father. For that, she says, she pays a price. "My mom hits me all the time," the 14-year-old says. "She hates my father, and I look just like him. I'm a reminder." Adriana, who is being identified only by her first name, says her relationship with her mother has recently deteriorated to new lows.

Richard Adams, a 23-year-old parking garage attendant from Ventura, vanished about a week ago. He was last seen playing with his dog and chatting with an unidentified man near Pierpont Beach. The dog walked trembling into the Doubletree Hotel 30 minutes later, but without his owner. Marcus McConnell, a 29-year-old clerical worker from Oxnard, was last seen in late January, leaving a friend's apartment in Ventura to drive to his parents' house in El Rio. He never arrived.

Small designer bowls filled with potpourri grace tables in each of the three bedrooms. A bouquet of rose-colored carnations brightens the dining area. Aside from the tiny kitchen that doubles as a laundry room, the single-story house in Anaheim has few, if any, signs of being a home for runaway youths.

When a 15-year-old Menlo Park girl left home early last month after an argument with her parents over her cellphone use, authorities believed she wouldn't venture far. There were no immediate signs of foul play and police believed that the teen would eventually turn up in a community near her Bay Area home. But days turned into weeks and concern for her safety grew. Those fears, Los Angeles police detectives say, turned out to be warranted. The runaway took the train to Union Station, where she befriended Kevin Escobar, a 20-year-old transient, said Los Angeles Police Det. Kurt Wachter, who oversees the LAPD's sexual assault detail for the West Bureau.

Two Santa Ana girls missing for three weeks were found unharmed Sunday evening after the mother of one received a phone call saying that they were at a Buena Park restaurant. Their homecoming ends not only an ordeal for the families but also criticism that police weren't doing enough to find the teens. Their families believed the 15-year-olds had been abducted.

A 14-year-old boy who disappeared two weeks ago was upset that his family couldn't find a plastic surgeon to treat his burn scars, and they fear he tried to return to Mexico on a bicycle with $50. Francisco Vargas Jr. was last seen by his mother on the afternoon of April 28. She said he was depressed about schoolwork and his parents' inability to find a doctor who could help remove long, facial scars covering a cheek.

Next year USC should send its football team to play Notre Dame instead of their Glee Club. TIM O'BRIEN, Montebello