Search ends for missing Avondale mom, 3-year-old

Avondale Police say the search for a mother and her 3-year-old daughter ended just before midnight Monday.
 
Benito Cervantes Mena said he was out of town on the morning of November 7th when he received a call from a man who said he had his girlfriend, 20-year-old Liliana Beatrice Iboa, and their 3-year-old daughter.
 
Mena told police the unidentified man demanded money in return for their release. 
 
Mena returned to the couple's Avondale home to find it had been burglarized, said police.
 
Mena did not report them missing until later that night.
 
According to a police news release, "He told police that he did not report the incident sooner because he feared his family would be harmed."
 
The two were released by their captors shortly before midnight Sunday.

They were reportedly taken from an undisclosed location and dropped off in north Phoenix.

Iboa then stopped a passerby who helped her contact police.

“We are relieved that both mother and child are safe and unharmed,” said Avondale Lt. Memo Espinoza.

The woman has previously gone missing

News archives show this is the second time Liliana Iboa has gone missing.
 
Back in 2003 the CBS station KVAL in Eugene, Oregon and the local newspaper The Register-Guard ran stories about the then 15-year-old Iboa.
 
Her parents said on August 30 she disappeared after working a late shift at a Mexican restaurant in Springfield, Oregon.
 
Springfield is located 9 miles east of Eugene.
 
They believed her then 21-year-old boyfriend Benito Mena had taken her against her will. According to an article by The Register-Guard, "Iboa's parents reported her as a runaway the night she vanished. They later told police their daughter telephoned them October 3. She was crying and the line was disconnected before she could say where she was or if she was all right, police said."
 
Former co-workers at the restaurant, Mi Pueblo, where she worked the night she went missing told the newspaper reporter, "The day she left, she told everybody that she loved this guy and one day she was going to run away with the guy because her father did not approve of the relationship."
 
At the time there was speculation the pair ran away to Mexico.
 
The parents told KVAL they were very worried.
 
Then about a month later KVAL reported that Iboa had called a Springfield detective to say she was safe and had indeed run away with Mena because her parents did not approve of him.
 
Over the years Iboa's parents moved to a city near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 
In a telephone interview with ABC15 on Saturday night Iboa's mom Maria Iboa said the couple had been separated for one year and that her daughter and granddaughter were living in New Mexico.
 
She said she did not approve of Mena because "he has a bad reputation".