California Issues Amber Alert for Michigan Girl

SACRAMENTO – California authorities issued an Amber Alert Thursday for a Michigan girl missing since Saturday, who may have been seen with her alleged abductor in Northern California.

Lindsey Ryan, 14, and convicted murderer Terry Drake, 56, were spotted Wednesday at a hotel in Grass Valley, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento.

FBI investigators asked the California Highway Patrol to issue the alert because they felt Ryan had been abducted, said CHP spokeswoman Anne DaVigo.

Drake could be driving a 1995 white Dodge Dakota truck with Indiana license plates, DaVigo said. He had made statements that he planned to camp along the Yuba River in Downieville, about 30 miles north of Grass Valley, she said.

Drake pleaded guilty to the 1977 kidnapping and murder of Linda Kearschner. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was released in 1993.

Ryan, of Jones, Mich., was discovered missing Saturday morning by her parents. Authorities said they believe she left with Drake, and issued an Amber Alert for Ryan and a warrant for Drake's arrest on a felony charge of child endangerment.

Witnesses reported seeing them several times in Wyoming and near the Utah-Nevada border. Michigan law enforcement officials have said the teen left with Drake of her own free will.

At a news conference held Tuesday in Cassopolis, Mich., Lindsey's mother, Carol Ryan, said her daughter met Drake at a small church that the family attended in Goshen. The man and the girl communicated over the Internet, police said.

Gov. Gray Davis, in announcing an expansion to California's Amber Alert system, said Thursday's alert was the 22nd time an alert had been issued.

"The Amber emergency system has been activated 21 times and in all 21 times, a child has been brought home safely," he said.

California's system will now include 19,000 retail outlets that sell lottery tickets, by using the video screens on the electronic terminals to announce the alerts.