Font ResizeBy Katina Caraganis
MediaNews
TOWNSEND -- A 23-year-old Townsend woman who had been missing for more than a week was found in Boston Wednesday morning.
The Boston Police Department was holding Amanda Dold on a warrant of apprehension issued out of Ayer District Court. Townsend Police are expected to bring Dold to Ayer District Court for a hearing, but a spokeswoman for the Middlsex District Attorney's Office said Dold was not in court Wednesday.
In a press release issued by Townsend Police Chief Erving J. Marshall, officers began tracking a cellphone that police suspected Dold was using. Boston police officers were able to identify an area in the city where the phone was being used and she was ultimately located.
Marshall said a female claiming to be Dold contacted the Townsend Police Department Tuesday to say she was fine, but would not say where she was. She told officers she had been receiving information from friends that people were looking for her, and she also saw news reports saying she was missing.
When contacted by phone Wednesday afternoon, Dold's father, Fran, said he didn't know the specifics of how his daughter had been found, but he was happy she was safe.
"I'm very happy. I don't know what condition she's in and what's going on or anything. I'm most definitely thrilled," he said. "I feel like I don't have that two-ton weight on my chest anymore. I owe a lot of people thanks. There were a lot of people out looking
Fran Dold said Tuesday that Amanda was last seen at Boston Medical Center Aug. 16 about 3 p.m., and since then she had not contacted her family, updated her Facebook page or made contact with friends.
He said she had been staying at a residential drug-rehabilitation facility in Roxbury, and had been clean and sober for three months before vanishing.
He said that his daughter disappeared without a change of clothes, and without her cellphone, and he feared the worst had happened.
Amanda Dold and her mother, Michelle, were arraigned in Fitchburg District Court earlier this month on motor-vehicle larceny charges and intimidation of a witness charge, respectively.
Both were summonsed based on accusations by Michelle Dold's niece, Jennifer Frederick, 30, of Fitchburg, who was also recently charged with trying to break into a Leominster diner.
According to court documents, Frederick claims Amanda Dold and her boyfriend stole her 2002 Ford Explorer in May after Amanda Dold asked her for a ride. Frederick told police she drove Dold to pick up her boyfriend from a drug-rehabilitation facility and then to their home on Elm Street to get gas money.
Frederick claims she waited for 15 minutes and then went inside to find them both passed out on the floor with drug needles beside them.
She said she woke the pair up and Dold asked her to bring her to Mt. Vernon Street in Fitchburg. Frederick said she would but wanted to drop her daughter off at home first. While she did that, Dold and her boyfriend allegedly drove off with the car.
The SUV was found later that same day on Franklin Street and there appeared to be no damage, but the windows were all open and the key was still in the ignition.
Frederick alleges that Michelle Dold told her to drop the charges against her daughter and her boyfriend or she would "take her on a ride that she has never been on in her life."
Both Michelle and Amanda Dold are due back in court Sept. 27.
