UPDATE: Missing 16-year-old with rare form of epilepsy has been found

UPDATE:

According to her family, 16-year-old Gabriella Charboneau was found safe Wednesday evening.

We’ll update this story if more details become available.

ORIGINAL STORY:

IDAHO FALLS — A 16-year-old girl with epilepsy is missing from Idaho Falls, and her mother says her disappearance is connected to another teenager who has been missing for nearly a month.

Gabriella Charboneau has been reported as a runaway. She was last seen around 2 p.m. Monday at her home on Crestview Avenue in Idaho Falls, wearing a green, long-sleeved belly shirt, black jeans, and black slip-on Vans shoes. She has shoulder-length black hair with a hint of red. She’s 5’4″ and about 120 pounds, and she has eyelash extensions. Her mother, Savannah Duenes, says Charboneau is of Native American/Hispanic heritage with a light complexion.

Charboneau’s family and the Idaho Falls Police Department are urgently requesting the public’s help in locating the girl, who has a rare form of epilepsy called sunflower syndrome. Seizures are triggered by sunlight, and as of Wednesday evening, she had been without her daily medication for three days. Her mother says she is worried that the situation could lead to a potentially deadly tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure.

Charboneau is believed to be connected to another runaway, 15-year old Hayvin Croft of Idaho Falls. Croft’s mother, LaceyMarie Wallender, says Croft has been missing for 29 days. He was supposed to meet with his probation officer but ran away from the meeting, and his mother and grandmother, who share custody, haven’t seen him since, Wallender says.

Croft is about 5’1″ with black, curly hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion, Wallender says. She says he has a “Momma’s Boy” tattoo on one arm and a tattoo of a cross on his right arm.

Duenes says there are rumors of Charboneau being spotted with an adult Hispanic male at Los Albertos restaurant, at an apartment across the street from WinCo Foods in Idaho Falls, and possibly in Mobile Home Estates and Linden Park Elementary School in Idaho Falls. Duenes says Charboneau may also be in the area of Leo’s Place restaurant. She left home in a pearly white Toyota Camry but has more recently been spotted in a blue Subaru, Duenes says.

Idaho Falls Police Department Public Information Officer Jessica Clements reminds the public that harboring a runaway is a crime.

“If you are knowingly harboring a juvenile that is considered a runaway, you need to call law enforcement and report that,” Clements says. “Sometimes we see it with other friends’ parents or older kids. They’ve got a runaway that’s crashing at their house. That’s considered a crime if you are knowingly harboring a runaway.”

Anyone with information on the location of Charboneau or Croft should call local law enforcement. The Idaho Falls Police Department can be reached at the nonemergency line at (208) 529-1200.