Lateche Norris found SAFE after vanishing in Gabby Petito-type case as cops say she’s ‘not the victim of any crime’
LATECHE Norris, an Indiana woman who was reported missing in early November after last being seen with her boyfriend, has been found alive.
Investigators from California's San Diego Police Department met with Lateche on Saturday to confirm her safety.
Cops also said that Lateche was never the victim of any crime.
“Norris thanked the public for their concern and asked for privacy,” read a statement from police.
There's no information as to where Lateche was found, or whether any investigation is still ongoing.
TMZ had earlier reported that Lateche was safe and reunited with her family.
Lateche's story gained attention when Gabby Petito's family shared information about the missing woman on social media.
The circumstances surrounding Lateche's disappearance were eerily similar to those surrounding Gabby's disappearance and death.
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The 20-year-old mysteriously disappeared on November 5, after she left home to meet up with her boyfriend Joseph “Joey” Smith, who had left a rehab facility and was reportedly living on the streets in San Diego.
Norris last spoke to her mom Cheryl Walker from a stranger's phone, saying that she'd been in a fight with her boyfriend and needed his number so she could call him.
She didn't explain why she did not use her phone or what the fight was about but promised to call back her mom later that day.
But after a day passed and the 20-year-old had not called back, Walker filed a missing person report with the San Diego Police Department.
Lateche's social media activity ceased on November 5 but just a day before her disappearance she shared a cryptic Facebook message that read: "It's okay to still cry over things u thought you moved past."
Earlier this year she moved from Indiana to Santa Cruz with Smith but returned home after two months.
She had flown back to see Smith just days before she vanished.
Her worried mom said her daughter sounded "frantic" on the phone and admitted that she and Smith had fallen out before, claiming there have been domestic violence incidents in the past.
She told local media: “She definitely would have called me back," adding that typically her daughter wouldn't go more than a couple of days without speaking to her.
"If her phone was dead, she would’ve found a way to charge it. Or call me from someone’s phone like that day."
Gabby Petito's family shared information about the search for Lateche on a Twitter page, GabbyFind, and in the Facebook group that had once been used as a digital headquarters in the search for Gabby.
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"We have converted our original #findgabby page on FB into a missing persons page," Gabby's stepfather Jim Schmidt said on Twitter.
"We are expanding it to Twitter and Instagram too. A work in progress, but we are committed to help find the missing."
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