Former UCLA student Nancy Salas told detectives Thursday night that she had fabricated her kidnapping to avoid telling her parents she had dropped out of UCLA two years ago, police said.
Salas, 22, disappeared Wednesday morning after she left her home in Glendale for a jog and was found in Merced Thursday afternoon.
According to Sgt. Tom Lorenz of the Glendale Police Department, Salas told Merced police that she had been abducted at knifepoint but later confessed to detectives that the abduction was fake.
Though Salas is unlikely to face charges, she may be sued for the cost of the extensive 36-hour search following her disappearance, police said Friday.
Salas, who had attended UCLA as a sociology student until fall 2008, told police she did not want to confront her parents about dropping out, as she was idolized by family and friends for being a successful student.
Before she fled her home, no friends and family members suspected that she was no longer a student.
Salas entered UCLA in 2005 with a full scholarship, but dropped out in 2008 when her scholarship money ran out and her grades were not high enough to receive another, police said.
Following her dropout, she continued to tell her family and friends about her classes and attend her professor’s office hours every Monday, said Andy Mendonca, Salas’ friend from church.
“I had seen her two or three weeks ago, and she shared that she had finished all her units and that she was going to walk in June,” said Erika Urrutia, Salas’ friend from Destino, a UCLA Christian student group.
According to Urrutia, Salas had continued to attend Destino meetings weekly in 2009, but her attendance became inconsistent in 2010. Friends said that they were unaware of her situation but could have learned more if they had asked her about the drop in attendance.
“As her friend, I’m not sure if we did the best job,” Urrutia said. “If we had asked more questions and met up one-on-one more, we would have known sooner.”
Salas’ friends and family were fliering in her Glendale neighborhood when they learned she had been found. Rather than dwelling on her lies, they celebrated her return and resolved to be more open to her problems, Urrutia said.
“I could understand why she felt that pressure to run away,” Urrutia said. “She lived under such high expectations.”
Shortly after Salas returned home, her father, Henry Salas, said that she would go back to school and resume her studies.
Urrutia said that Salas was bound by the idolatry of her friends and family and did not want them to feel she let them down.
“She probably thought they would be disappointed, but love goes beyond accomplishments,” she said. “We just want to love and support her.”