ABDUCTED GIRL RETURNS HOME

Alese Reichart, 15, was taken away by her mother, Joli Ann Taylor, when she was just 5 years old amid a bitter legal battle that left the parents with joint custody. For nine years her name was Nicole Peters and she pretended to be a year younger than her age to prevent any clues to her location from reaching her father, Michael Reichart. Taylor took her daughter away from their Illinois home and settled in Tucson and remarried and Alese built her own teenage life there as Nicole. The late last year a classmate recognized pictures of Alese and her mother on a missing children advertisement. Their principal called authorities, and FBI agents showed up at the middle school in December and took Alese back to Chicago. After eight months in foster care she learned her parents' lawyers had reached an agreement to return her to her friends and stepfather in Tucson and for the first time in nearly a decade, Alese was able to use her real name and age openly in the community she considers home. Her mother has to remain in Illinois to face child abduction charges filed against her in 1991, though she is free on bond. And after 10 years apart, Alese will be spending vacations with her father, who has had sole legal custody of her since 1994.

(Tucson, Arizona)