A 16-year-old boy from China was found safe on Monday, 36 hours after he disappeared and 40 miles away from a motel he stayed at while on a college campus tour with his mother, police said.
Someone spotted Jin Wuwei on Monday in West Hollywood and alerted police.
Wuwei went missing before 1 p.m. Friday after having walked away from the Claremont Lodge, 40 miles away from where he was found Monday afternoon.
Through a translator, his father said he wanted to get away, "show his personality" and "do his own thing."
"I'm so excited," said his father, Jin Xi Jun, through a translator. "I'm so happy."
He was sitting on a bus bench on Sunset Boulevard when someone noticed him from a poster police distributed seeking the 6-foot-tall teenager.
Detectives were trying to piece together where the teen had been the time he was missing. Police don't believe there was any foul play.
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"Happy to see he's safe," said Lt. Jason Walters, of the Claremont Police Department. "Thank you to the LA Sheriff's Department for finding him. And, again, thank you to the local citizen who called the department when they recognized him."
He was last seen on security cameras walking away from a motel. He had a backpack with a laptop several hundred dollars, a credit card and cellphone. Those items were missing.
