Missing teen Pretty Plume Cobiness found safe
15-year-old girl had been reported missing in Winnipeg on Saturday
The mother of 15-year-old Pretty Plume Cobiness, who was returned home safely on Wednesday after being missing for almost a week, says she was afraid it was her daughter's body that was pulled out of the Red River.
Rose Cobiness said when she heard reports that a teenager's body had been recovered from the river in Winnipeg on Sunday, she feared it may have been Pretty Plume, who had been reported missing on Saturday.
"Right away I thought, 'Plume.' I was all like, 'Oh my God, Plume.' Then I tried to fight myself and say, 'OK, snap out of it, that's not Plume. That can't be Plume,'" Cobiness told CBC News in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
Thousands of people attended a vigil on Tuesday night honouring Tina Fontaine and Faron Hall, whose bodies were pulled from the river on Sunday.
Police are treating the death of Fontaine, who was also 15 years old, as a homicide.
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Pretty Plume Cobiness was returned home safely on Wednesday morning by city police.
The teen would not talk about where she had spent the past week, but she said problems in her own life were building up and she needed to get away.
"Just like a little balloon: if you poke a water balloon once, a few drops come out. If you poke it over and over again, that's all your pain, and pretty soon it just explodes. And sometimes you don't want to be around anybody when something like that happens," she said.
Pretty Plume said her parents are not to blame for her going missing.
In addition to filing a missing persons report with police, the Cobiness family put up posters and pleaded for the public's help via Facebook in locating her.
Her brother, Pete Cobiness, had said the family was concerned for her safety.
"You never know and if you’re in the city, that’s what really worries me — some crazy stuff goes on out here," he told CBC News on Tuesday.
Officers were seen canvassing Winnipeg's West End on Wednesday, asking residents for information that could help solve Fontaine's case.
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With files from the CBC's Connie Walker