Fullerton : Police Conclude Missing Girl, 15, Is a Runaway

Police investigating the disappearance of a 15-year-old Fullerton girl concluded Friday that she ran away with teen-agers she met at an amusement park.

Nicole Anne Francoise left a friend’s house on Brookhurst Road at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday riding her friend’s bicycle for the 2 1/2-mile trip to her home on Adlena Drive, Capt. Don Bankhead said.

Her father, David Francoise, found the bicycle parked in a bike rack at the Fullerton Hunt-Wesson Library Thursday afternoon about half a mile from the girlfriend’s house, Bankhead said.

Bankhead said the girl and her friend had spent the afternoon together Wednesday at Knott’s Berry Farm. The friend told police Friday that they met three other teen-agers there, two boys and a girl, who invited them to go to Palm Springs and then Ohio, he said.

“The friend finally told us what happened,” Bankhead said. “We now have information that (Nicole) was not abducted but that she probably went with the people.”