Arizona teen vanished at 13... now we've found her at 45

by · Mail Online

The Arizona woman who was found alive after going missing 32 years ago is a married mother-of-three now living in Missouri, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Christina Plante is pictured for the first time in three decades after she was discovered in Springfield, a city 1,100 miles from where she disappeared as a 13-year-old girl. 

She forged a totally new life, marrying as a teen and having three sons before earning a psychology degree and getting a job with a private investigations firm.

But Plante has made it clear she doesn't want to talk about why she left the tiny community of Star Valley, 100 miles northeast of Phoenix, shortly after noon on a Sunday in May 1994.

'She isn't being very cooperative with us. She wouldn't say who she met with or how she even got of out of the town,' Chief Deputy Jim Lahti of Gila County Sheriff's Office in Arizona told the Daily Mail.

'She did admit that she ran away. She didn't want to be there, and she connected with another undisclosed family member.'

And Plante, 45, was similarly tight-lipped when the Daily Mail asked about her disappearance when we visited the five-bedroom home she now shares with husband Shawn Hollon, 49.

Christina Plante, was 13 when she vanished in 1994. Now the Daily Mail has located her in Springfield, Missouri, where she is a married mother of three boys
Known as Tina Plante as a child, this picture was widely distributed after she went missing in 1994 as cops desperately searched for her

'She's processing it all,' her husband of 28 years said about how she feels about being found.

Hollon, a software engineering manager, said she shared her story with him before they tied the knot in 1998.

But he declined to divulge details, saying: 'I think you'll probably have to talk with her about that.' 

Christina – known as Tina – was 13 when her uncle, Gary Plante, reported her missing. Her disappearance sparked a massive search and missing person probe.

Cops initially feared she may have been taken by her mother, who did not have legal custody of her.

But this was never confirmed, and with all leads dried up, Plante's disappearance became yet another unsolved missing person case gathering dust on a shelf.

That was until a new Cold Case unit led by Captain Jamie Garrett revisited the file with the help of modern technology and social media, said Lahti.

He told the Daily Mail: 'Captain Garrett gave the case to one of our civilian investigators. They started probing around online, checking out social media, and they made a few public records requests.

Christina married Shawn Hollon when she was just 17, four years after she disappeared from Arizona
Christina Hollon still doesn't want the full story of why and how she vanished to be known
Christina's husband Shawn Hollon said she told him of her history before they married in 1998
Christina and her husband have three sons. They live in this house in Springfield, Missouri 

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'That's pretty much how they put it together.

'It was just a literal pull it off the shelf, dust it off and say, 'Here, take a look and see if you can find this person'.'

Captain Garrett, who contacted Plante to confirm her identity, revealed she was left 'dumbfounded' when the missing woman said she had left willingly.

'I was like, 'Oh, my gosh. Okay, so you ran away,' Garrett told NewsNation's Jesse Weber Live.

'I told her, 'You know, we were under the impression that somebody kidnapped you. It was deemed a criminal offense'. 

'I guess she wasn't happy with where she was living and who she was living with, and she ran away,' the cold case investigator said. 

Plante was 'surprised' to be contacted after hiding her tracks for so long. She wouldn't say anything that could potentially incriminate anyone who had helped her, added Lahti.

'But she was very, very guarded and wanted to remain as private as possible.'

Terry Hudgens, an ex-Gila County sheriff's deputy who led the initial search, told NBC Plante's disappearance arose from a 'custody battle' between her mother and father.

He said Plante's dad had custody of her, but she wanted to live with her mom.

According to him, the mother and daughter met at a stable where she kept her horse and later drove to Phoenix Airport and disappeared.

The sheriff in Gila County, Arizona, sent out missing person bulletins in 1995 saying that Tina had gone to a stable but never arrived
Now the sheriff has closed the case after Tina was found 
Tina is now 'processing' the fact that she has been discovered by cops, her husband Shawn told the Daily Mail 

'That's a part of it,' Lahti said when asked about Hudgens's account, but added the teen's father was dead and she was living with her aunt and uncle at the time.

Her aunt and uncle could not be reached for comment.

Plante fled to Missouri and was just 17 when she wed Shawn Hollon, then 21, according to a newspaper article published in the Springfield News-Leader on March 20, 1998.

She and Hollon are pictured cutting their wedding cake in a nostalgic social media snap he shared on March 19, 2023, to mark their 25th wedding anniversary.

In a caption alongside the photograph, he wrote: '25 years ago today. 3 grown kids. Many happy memories. Here's to 25 more.'

The Hollons bought their first home, a three-bedroom new-build, in Springfield in June 1999 for $86,450, property records reveal.

They welcomed their firstborn, Michael, in August 1999, before a second son, Nathan, arrived in 2002, and their third son, Matthew, came along in 2005.

In May 2010, the couple sought a bigger house for their expanded brood and bought their current home in Springfield for $156,689.

She left tiny Star Valley, Arizona for a new life 1,100 miles away in Missouri
Chief Deputy Jim Lahti (left) said Tina 'isn't being very cooperative' after Captain Jamie Garrett tracked her down

Plante appears to have forged a successful personal and professional life in the years since she fled Arizona.

In pictures shared on social media, she is pictured snorkeling with her husband in Cancun, Mexico, and celebrating one son's graduation with her family.

She earned a psychology degree from Missouri State University in 2020 and is a team supervisor for Worldwide Resources, a Springfield-based private investigations firm which specializes in probing insurance claims fraud.

Plante shows up in Missouri property records in March 1999, but her mother, Mary, appears to have been living there as early as August 1995, with records placing her in a two-bedroom home in Springfield.

Mary Plante subsequently married Dan Wood, who died in December 2006, aged 62.

In December 2024, Plante became her mother's court-appointed guardian and conservator following a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis. She now lives in a care home.

Plante is described in court documents as Wood's 'only biological child…with whom [she] has had consistent contact with over the past twenty years.'

Her other biological daughter was adopted as a child, while a biological son has been estranged from Wood for many years, the documents state.

Though Plante is resolved to keep her secrets, cops are still counting her case as a win, Lahti said.

'Even with all the unknowns, and the shroud that she wants to keep around a lot of it, it is a good thing when we can say: 'Here's somebody we initially thought had been abducted by a stranger, and we had no idea if they were even still alive'.

'Now we can say they are alive, living a normal life and seem to be happy and doing well.'