Seventy-two days after walking out of school and down the street instead of taking her usual bus home, Tanvi Marupally was found almost 1,000 miles away from Conway in Tampa, Florida.

On Wednesday, March 29, the community was shocked by the news that 15-year-old Marupally had been found, alive and unharmed. 

After two months of community-led efforts to find the missing teen and to push her name, story and photos out to the public, River Watson, a Florida resident, spotted Marupally in a public library in Tampa on March 28. Watson recognized her from a photo on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Instagram page.

Watson took a photo of her and sent it to the same Instagram page from which he initially recognized her, and from there, authorities handled confirming her identity and getting her back home.

“You’ve heard many times over the years, ‘If you see something, say something,’ and this is the perfect example of that,” Conway Police Chief William Tapley said at a March 30 news conference.

By early Wednesday morning, March 29, the Conway Police Department had been notified someone matching Marupally’s description was spotted in Tampa, and they contacted the U.S. Marshals Service and the Tampa Police Department. 

In what Tapley said was “a case of sheer luck,” when Tampa police went to the library to review security camera footage, Marupally returned.

Tapley said upon being spotted and approached by Tampa police, Marupally immediately identified herself. Tampa police took her into protective custody for further questioning, asking her questions only she would know the answer to, to confirm her identity.

The Conway Police Department notified Marupally’s family and made arrangements to get her back home as soon as possible.

“Today is a good day, Tanvi Marupally is at home with her family, where she should be,” Tapley said at the press conference.

Despite being found in Tampa, Marupally spent most of the two months she was missing in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Tapley said on Jan. 17, when Marupally walked down Davis Street instead of taking her school bus, she walked to the train tracks. She spent the rest of that day and the entire night following the tracks until she found a train she could get on, which she rode into Kansas City.

U.S. Deputy Marshal Jeremy Hammons of the Eastern Arkansas Fugitive Task Force helped with Marupally’s case. He said the Marshals Service helps with missing child cases as of 2015. 

Hammons said at the news conference he was told from the beginning that Marupally was resourceful, but he was still “absolutely astonished” she made her trek safely.

“I had no idea I was dealing with a little Rambo here,” he said.

In Kansas City, Marupally found a homeless shelter where she checked in under a fake identity, and stayed for two months. Tapley said she got to Tampa by taking a bus, and upon arrival, found an abandoned property where she lived before being found. 

At the library, Marupally had been using the computers to search for jobs through Craigslist in order to earn some cash. She had a working phone with her when authorities found her, but it was unclear where she got the phone from, as she did not have one when she went missing from Conway Junior High School in January. 

The Conway Police Department believes the stress of the chance of her family being deported is why Marupally might have run away from home. Tapley said that, other than knowing the teen walked north on Davis Street on the afternoon of Jan. 17, they had no other viable information about her whereabouts over the past two months. 

Tapley said the lack of information about where she may have been was the reason why a news conference wasn’t held earlier in her disappearance. He explained that because she was considered a runaway and was not kidnapped, they could not send out an Amber Alert, but assured the community the department worked continuously on her case, even if it was behind closed doors.

While several groups were involved in aiding in Marupally’s safe return, one specific community member has been an outspoken advocate for her case.

Conway resident Jenny Wallace has spent much of her time over the last two months working tirelessly to push Marupally’s story to as many people as possible.

“I became an advocate for Tanvi and her family when I realized very little of anything had been done the first two weeks she was missing. When I knocked on doors on the street she was missing on and none of the people I spoke to knew there was a child missing. On day 13, I knew that if this child was going to come home, the community was going to have to be involved,” Wallace said. 

Despite the time that had passed with little to no leads where Marupally might be, and not knowing her or her family prior to her disappearance, Wallace said she vowed to never stop searching for her, advocating for her and supporting her family. 

Marupally turned 15 just days before being found. To honor her birthday, Wallace, Marupally’s family and other community members held a celebration and planted a tree in her honor at the Faulkner County Library in Conway.

“I think she’s going to love the tree we planted for her. She was found in a library … we planted the tree at her library,” Wallace said.