Published: April 19. 2009 5:03PM
Sierra Lillie returned safely to Erie today, a week after leaving home with a 21-year-old man she met on the Internet.
Her family traveled to Arkansas, where the Diehl Elementary School eighth-grader had been found Thursday apparently unharmed and hitchhiking with Donald Ray Cates.
"We grabbed each other and hugged each other and cried," Michelle Lillie said in describing her reunion with her daughter.
She said they returned to Erie this afternoon. Sierra had been missing since the Sunday before, when her parents believed she had gone to a friend's house after Easter dinner. She was found Thursday in Clarksville, Ark.
Cates, of Lewiston, Mont., was being held by authorities in Arkansas. He faces charges in Montana of forcing five underage girls to have sex in 2005.
Investigators said Cates and Sierra met online two years ago.
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090419/NEWS02/304199864
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