More than a half-dozen police agencies on the local, state and federal levels worked for weeks to find a missing 16-year-old from Deep River.
In the end, it was a pre-dawn car ride in Oklahoma that led them to her.
Katherine Konrad, who goes by Kate, was found safe in a vehicle in Miami, Okla. — some 1,400 miles away — during a 4 a.m. traffic stop Friday, state police said. She had been missing about a month.
The driver, a 22-year-old Connecticut man, was driving while his license was suspended, Trooper Christine Jeltema said.
Kate Konrad knows him and she appears to have been with him willingly, she said, and as of Friday, the state police had no plans to arrest anyone. Still, the investigation remains open.
Konrad’s father, Scott Konrad, said he felt “profound relief” when he heard his daughter was safe. His wife, Candace, had picked up the phone about 5 a.m. Friday and said, ” ‘You found her?’ ” he said.
“And I just heard her crying. It was a profound relief,” he said. “Your mind races through all kinds of scenarios during the month that this was happening.”
Kate Konrad disappeared Dec. 20, her father’s birthday, after her mother dropped her off at Valley Regional High School, where the honors student is in the International Baccalaureate program. She never showed up in class, Scott Konard said.
Surveillance video captured her walking toward the school but then turning around and walking away, he said.
Kate Konrad was listed as an endangered runaway and a Silver Alert was issued.
Silver Alerts are automatic for missing children Konrad’s age and younger, Jeltema said. They also are automatic for people at the other end of the age spectrum.
Asked if his daughter ever ran away before, Konard said, “Never. This was totally out of the blue. This is a kid who has always been a good student.”
The family later learned that she might be with an older man, who Konard refers to as his daughter’s “companion.”
Asked if the family was in touch with her while she was gone, he said, “We had been trying to push out emails to her. We pushed out those things to show her that the whole world cares about you, the whole world is rooting for you.”
The family and students from the high school also held a vigil at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex to publicize the case. Family members, including Kate’s older sister, Emily, 19, looked into television cameras and asked her to come home.
It didn’t work.
In addition to several divisions of the state police, law enforcement organizations working on the case included the FBI, the New York State Police, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and New York City police.
Police at one point suspected the two had headed to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
“He has some connection to that area,” Konard said. “There is something about that area that he found attractive.”
As for why family members think she ended up in Oklahoma, Konard said they “haven’t a clue.”
Konard said Friday afternoon that the family was making arrangements to bring his daughter home. She has been with Oklahoma Human Services staff.
Once she’s home, the hard work begins, he said.
“It’s the end of this nightmare, but it’s just the beginning of the next chapter,” Konard said. The long-term goal is to “get Kate functioning the way she was before. We just want to give her all the love and support that she needs at this point.”
Courant staff writers Zach Murdock and Dave Altimari contributed to this report.
Christine Dempsey can be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.
