A Connecticut family who sold their home and disappeared over the summer, prompting worried family members to file a missing persons report, has been found safe, police confirm.
People reports that the family, Andres Bravo, 43, Jennifer Cubillos, and their children, 14-year-old Christopher Bravo and 11-year-old Samantha Bravo, have been safely located after disappearing from their Naugatuck, Connecticut, home in June. Police said the family has been vacationing but out of respect for their privacy, declined to provide additional details.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, when the kids failed to show up to school on August 27, school officials tried to contact the parents but phone numbers were no longer in service. School officials then drove to the family’s home to check on the children and discovered it was vacant.
The family reportedly left no forwarding information on how to reach them. Family members reported hearing from them for the last time in June or July at a local bank, when the family apparently announced they planned to move to Florida. A relative of the family told police they received text messages from Bravo and Cubillos that abruptly stopped on August 11. The relative said the last message the couple sent stated they planned to return to Connecticut and needed money for car insurance.
“Everything that we have been able to check shows that they have not re-established down there [in Florida],” Lt. Bryan Cammarata said last week. “We can’t even verify that they have even left the state.”
Cammarata added that the family’s vehicle remained registered in Connecticut and public records show the family’s residence as still in Naugatuck, although records state they sold their home over the summer.
However, Cammarata said there’s no evidence that suggests foul play.
“Right now, there is nothing to indicate there was anything criminal. But we’re not ruling anything out at this point.”
Regardless, the bizarre way in the which the family disappeared resulted in authorities issuing Silver Alerts for the children. The entire family has been placed on the National Crime Information Center, and listed as missing.
Last Wednesday, someone who claimed to be one of the missing family members contacted police. Yet, when asked for proof of identity, the person couldn’t or wouldn’t provide it, according to authorities.
“Everybody’s fine,” Cammarata said on Monday. “They are perfectly fine. They are actually vacationing.”
“Now that we have spoken with them, we see it was an unintended sequence of events that turned it into what it was. They weren’t trying to be unreachable. It just worked out that way.”
Cammarata also emphasized there is “absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of the family.”
[Feature Photo: Andres Bravo, Jennifer Cubillos, Christopher Bravo, and Samantha Bravo/Handout]