Florida Teen Tearfully Reunites With Parents After Disappearing With Soccer Coach, 27

Parents of a Florida teen who went missing with a high school soccer coach spoke out on Saturday about their “very emotional reunion.”

Caitlyn Frisina, 17, was found on Friday in New York. She disappeared last Saturday and had been spotted traveling north with 27-year-old Rian Rodriguez.

“We’re looking forward to a lot more time together,” her mother, Scarlet Frisina, said at a press conference on Saturday. “We had a very beautiful, wonderful, very emotional reunion with her a little while ago, and we are so thankful to have her back.”

Law enforcement officials last week said they were investigating the “blossoming of a potential relationship” between Frisina and Rodriguez, who was a boy’s soccer coach at a high school in Fort White, Fla., where Frisina plays soccer.

Rodriguez has been arrested on charges of interfering with child custody, Action News Jax reported. According to an arrest warrant affidavit cited by the local station, Frisina’s friend told her parents that Rodriguez had wanted to leave the country with her.

“It’s been difficult,” her father, Ward Frisina, said at Saturday’s press conference. “I’m glad to have my daughter back, where I know I can protect her and keep her safe, as a father always wants to do.”