Bend police update: Missing girl, 5, found safe

(Update: Mother says she wanted to spend birthday with girl)

Bend police issued an urgent alert Monday afternoon for the public to help find a missing 5-year-old girl who was in state custody and vanished from her foster home. About 30 minutes later came word the girl had been found safe, but her mother, a person of interest in her disappearance, was still being sought.,

Gabriella Leyva-Rosales had been last seen around 4 a.m. in her bed at her home in the 1600 block of Wells Acres Road, said Lt. Clint Burleigh. The child’s grandmother awoke at 7:30 a.m. and found Gabriella was missing.

Officers were checking several areas around Bend in an attempt to locate Gabriella, and released photos of her, one with her biological mother, Bertha Leyva, considered a person of interest in her disappearance.

Word came around 2 p.m. that the little girl had been found safe in the area of Northeast Tucson Way. Her mother was still being sought, as well as a possibly involved vehicle, a black SUV similar to a Suburban, possibly towing an open-top wood-sided trailer.

The girl’s mother contacted NewsChannel 21 later Monday afternoon to say it’s her birthday and she wanted to spend it with her daughter, so she took her to a friend of the mother’s for a visit.

We’ll have more details as available and on NewsChannel 21.