MAINE, USA — A 16-year-old from Kennebunk is now safe after he took his mother's car early Tuesday morning and ran away. His family tells NEWS CENTER Maine that they're still recovering from this worrisome experience.
"He is a good kid, and I know he knows that we are hurting, and I don't know if he feels that he can't come home, or I would hope that he realizes that we have so much open communication with him that he knows that no matter what he can come home because we really don't know why he left," said Shawn's mother, Debbie Bonti.
Shawn was found within 48 hours but it was an agonizing experience for the family. The Kennebunk Police Department is not saying where.
"We really don't know why he left," Bonti said. "We can make this work. We could do what we need to do, we just want him home."
Kennebunk Police Department's deputy chief Michael Nugent said he believes many teens are still having a tough time dealing with the pandemic, something parents should be even more on top of and make sure they are feeling well during these stressful times.
"It's easy to perhaps underestimate the stress that kids are under, especially during the lockdowns, and with the lack of social activities," Nugent said. "I think its very important folks check in with their kids, and see how they are doing."
As soon as Shawn ran away, he called his grandmother.
Shawn Liguori's grandmother, Connie Lou Liguori said he has been feeling that stress, he told her he was not feeling happy at home nor with school work.
"I said Shawn, why? why did you leave? and he says I've been so unhappy for so long and he said that I just need to be happy," Connie Liguori said.
The Kennebunk Police Department is still looking for Brooklynn Torstense, the 15-year-old has reported she is safe but has not returned home.
Experts say teenagers are dealing with things like a lack of care or supervision from parents, a mental illness, domestic abuse, are just some of the reasons teens decide to run away from home.
"There is tension in the house, and its gotten to the point where the child says or the youth says, I'm out of here and they walk out the door," said David McCluskey the Executive director Shaw House.
McCluskey says the Shaw House serves as a youth homeless house for teens at risk, serving ages 14 through 20. He says his staff works hard to help bridge the divide between the teen and the family, and to meditate, for teens to go back to their family.
"The largest concern is that they are getting involved with people who are not safe," said McCluskey.
"Social media is very tough on our children, while we get the connections certainly this time when maybe they can't hang with the school friends like they used to, I understand the significance of having that but the social media certainly builds a lot of pressure and these children and on our teens," adds Scott Ireland, a lieutenant with the Maine State Police and he runs the state's computer crimes unit.
Ireland said teens spending more time online has led to more unsafe connections, he has seen a significant spike in the number of cases received involving teens, he believes with teens working remotely, there is a lot more time they are spending online making them more vulnerable.
"It's just almost impossible to keep up with the demand or the number of calls that are coming in, its very sad to see these people either exploited or harmed in any way," said Ireland.
These are just some of the teens who have gone missing recently, most of them have been found except Brooklynn Torstensen, the 15-year-old in the middle of the picture from the town of Kennebunk.
"Young people need a chance and we are there to support them," added McCluskey.
Ireland recommends parents to keep an eye and stay engages with their children and to reiterate the danger they may be involved with, if spending too much time online.
"I worry about the vulnerability of our children and the lifelong impacts of what these young people are doing," said Ireland. "I think there are a lot of parent who don't understand many of the platforms their children are using."