
DATE: Friday, July 18, 1997                 TAG: 9707180645

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  125 lines

RUNAWAY'S SAFE RETURN WAS RARE HAPPY ENDING 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL IS LUCKY TO BE ALIVE, POLICE SAID.

For nearly four months, Joni Wilson feared she would never see her runaway daughter again.

And when the teen-ager stepped off the train in February, Wilson barely recognized her. Andrea Lutz, 14, was wearing black lipstick, heavy makeup, a midriff top and hip-hugger pants.

It was a disguise - of sorts.

Andrea changed her appearance to blend in with the people she met in New York's Times Square, where she lived for three months after disappearing from Chesapeake Square Mall in June 1996.

Wilson didn't mind her daughter's clothes. She didn't even mind that transvestites, prostitutes and drug dealers occasionally took Andrea in at night and gave her money for food.

``She looked like a 21-year-old woman,'' said Wilson, sitting on a couch next to her daughter. ``But if I could meet them, I'd give them (street walkers) a hug. I was ready to deal with whatever I was getting back as a child, as long as she was alive and breathing.''

Andrea's return makes her different from many runaways, police say.

On average, more than 115 Hampton Roads youths ages 9 to 17 leave home each week, according to police statistics. Ninety percent of them become involved in criminal activity.

Most runaways remain in the area and return after only two or three days, Chesapeake police Detective Michael Lawton said. Some teen-agers run away so often that parents stop bothering to file police reports.

But Lawton, who has investigated runaways for 10 years, doesn't know of another child who ran so far and returned unscathed.

``The longer this goes, the more chance that some city is going to find a body,'' Lawton said. ``I didn't think she would ever make her way back here.''

Andrea, who says she now regrets her decision, isn't sure why she ran away. At the time, she was frustrated with her curfew and fought constantly with her mother's boyfriend.

After leaving Chesapeake Square, Andrea fled to the Oceanfront, where she and another runaway teen-ager, Roxanne, headed to an arcade.

The girls later went to Roxanne's friend's house in Manassas. Andrea called a friend back home several times, but stopped calling because she feared that police were tapping the line. Andrea and Roxanne then fled to New York, where they moved around frequently, relying on strangers on the street to help them survive.

Andrea admits that she used drugs while on the run. She was high on marijuana nearly every day and also drank. But Andrea said she turned down other drugs.

``I smoked weed,'' Andrea said, turning away from her mother. ``I'm too smart to get involved with crack or cocaine, because those are the worst drugs. I've seen people who've used them.''

Although Andrea lived with drug dealers - and just about anyone else who agreed to ``pay her way'' - she said she never sold drugs.

``I couldn't be really picky and choosy about the people I was friends with,'' Andrea said. ``They were taking care of me, so it would have been like biting the hand that feeds me. I wasn't with the best of people, but I was with the best I could find.''

When she couldn't crash with friends, Andrea spent nights walking around and riding the subway.

``There were a lot of runaway kids prostituting, but I would never do that,'' Andrea said. ``I'm not going to lie to you, I came real close. People asked me.''

Andrea was planning to move to the Pocono Mountains when she was picked up last September by a New York City police officer. The officer saw Andrea with a known drug dealer and suspected she was a runaway.

Although running away from home isn't illegal, police have authority to detain teen-agers for several hours - and can obtain permission from a judge to hold them overnight - if they suspect they are runaways, or if they suspect the teens are lying about their identity, Lawton said.

Police couldn't find Roxanne when Andrea was picked up. Wilson recently heard that she is living in Florida with her father.

Andrea agreed to call her father, who lives in Pennsylvania and is divorced from her mother. The police officer contacted Lawton, who notified Andrea's mother.

Andrea lived with her father for several months before returning to Chesapeake.

Now that Andrea is back with her mother, the makeup is gone. So is the nose ring she wore when she ran away.

She has graduated from Chesapeake Alternative School and will enter Deep Creek High School this fall as a 10th-grader.

Chesapeake Alternative School Principal Jesse E. Thompkins isn't surprised that Andrea made it home.

``When you look at her, she doesn't appear to be a 14-year-old kid,'' Thompkins said. ``She isn't dumb. She has street smarts.''

But adjusting to life as a Chesapeake high school student after living on the streets of New York has not been easy. Andrea has learned to control her violent behavior, Thompkins said.

Andrea now regrets running away, and said she has advised several of her friends not to try it.

``It's not a good idea, it doesn't solve anything,'' Andrea said. ``You can never get as much food and sleep and loving as you can get at home.''

But teen-agers who have run away once are likely to run away again, especially those who do not return on their own, Lawton said.

``Just knowing that she was able to run away and stay away that long, she's capable of running away again,'' Lawton said. ``She knows people will take her in, and she knows her way around. I would hope she wouldn't do it again, because of what she put her mother through.''

Andrea and her mother are now trying to repair their relationship, Wilson said.

``I've always been close to my children,'' Wilson said. ``I know them. I know how they feel.''

After living in fear for so long, Wilson said she is now content to live in doubt.

``I don't know what happened to her when she was there,'' Wilson said. ``I don't think she's told me everything yet,'' Wilson said, trying to look her in the eye. Andrea looks down at her lap and shuffles through her mother's file of police reports, runaway notes and bus tickets. ``I don't think we'll ever know all of it.'' MEMO: Runaways in need of help can call Seton House at 498-HELP. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MORT FRYMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

Andrea Lutz, left, talks about her experiences with her mother, Joni

Wilson. The former runaway, 14, says she regrets her action.

Photo

MORT FRYMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

Andrea Lutz's return home makes her different from many runaways.

Chesapeake police Detective Michael Lawton, who has investigated

runaways for 10 years, doesn't know of another child who ran so far

away and returned unscathed.