One of two missing girls from Harford living center found, as officials continue fire investigation at nearby historic mansion

Aegis, The (Bel Air, MD)

May 4--Officials have found one of two teenage girls missing from a group home in Harford County, the Office of the State Fire Marshal reported Monday.

Destiny Hailie Madera and Kaylee Danae Wright, both 16 years old, were reported missing to the Harford County Sheriff's Office on Saturday, May 2, at approximately 9:11 p.m., the day before a fire was reported at an adjacent property.

Kaylee was found Sunday night in Havre de Grace and returned to the Arrow Child & Family Ministries Crossroads Transitional Living Center, where both she and Destiny are residents, Senior Deputy State Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire said.

Kaylee was not injured when she was located, Alkire said.

Destiny is still missing, Alkire said. She is 5-foot-2 and approximately 160 pounds. She has blond hair with green highlights and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing an army fatigue T-shirt, green shorts and multicolor sneakers.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts should call 911, or the Maryland State Police Barracks at 410-879-2101.

The two were last seen Saturday at approximately 1 a.m at the center, which is located at 2408 Creswell Road between Bel Air and Aberdeen. The center is designed to prepare girls ages 13 to 21 for successful independent living after foster care, according to Arrow's website.

Both teens were reported missing before a Sunday fire at an Victorian-style mansion a couple hundred feet away.

The investigation into the fire is ongoing; officials were searching for the girls "strictly for the well-being of them."

Alkire said Kaylee's movements were also being examined. He could not say if she had a driver's license or if the two girls had been traveling together. Their mode of transportation is also unclear.

Havre de Grace is approximately 13 miles away from Arrow's Crossroads living center.

Arrow's chief relations officer Debi Tengler said the center supports people ages 13 to 21 in gaining independence and transitioning back into society through a shared living arrangement and education, where applicable. Residents of the center begin living in dorm housing before moving to apartment-style housing and gradually gaining more autonomy.

Both the teens were on the first step of the program, Tengler said. While they are not free to come and go as they please ? the center has a schedule residents must adhere to -- the Crossroads center is not a lockdown facility.

Running "can occur and does occur with children who are in their process of healing," Tengler said.

"That is not unusual for anybody working with traumatized children or adults."

The center is checking to see if any of its policies and guidelines were violated, she said. Because both are minors, Tengler could not disclose whether they had drivers' licenses or other personal information.

Fire investigation at historic mansion continues

The fire caused significant damage to Fair Meadows, a historic mansion that was being renovated, Alkire said. Investigators are considering the building a total loss, he said. The mansion was not occupied.

Nobody was injured in the blaze, which took about two hours to control, Alkire said.

While the mansion is located in close proximity to the Arrow living center, the Texas-based company does not own the home, "nor have we ever occupied that building," Tengler said.

After speaking with a private insurance company Monday, investigators will bring heavy equipment to the scene to move debris, Alkire said. The mansion's attic collapsed into the lower floors, and the building suffered "extensive water damage," he said, making for a potentially time-consuming investigation and excavation.

Investigators have not yet been able to enter the building because of the structural damage, Alkire said, but the office's bomb squad has given investigators an aerial view of the building using a drone, being the department's licensed drone-operators.

The Fair Meadows mansion is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It was added in November 1980, when it was still part of the Eastern Christian College campus.

The mansion was built in 1868 for Clement Dietrich, the last owner of Harford Furnace. The significance of Fair Meadows, according to its page on the Maryland Historic Trust website, are two-fold.

"First, as a residence executed in a richly ornamented but conservative interpretation of the Second Empire style, Fair Meadows embodies the distinctive characteristics of a period and type of architecture that, while popular in the U.S. in the 1860s and 1870s, was rarely used in its 'high style' form in rural Maryland. Its important features include the exterior stonework, intact interior tile flooring, plaster ornamental work, and marble mantels, and a mansard-roofed carriage house," according the site.

"Second, as the house which was the residence of Clement Dietrich, an entrepreneur who substantially expanded the Harford Furnace Iron Works to include flour and saw mills and a large chemical manufacturing plant, Fair Meadows is associated with a person significant in Harford County's industrial history."

Eastern Christian College began as Eastern Christian Institute in 1946, meeting in a church in East Orange, N.J. The school moved to Creswell, halfway between Bel Air and Aberdeen, in 1958 and opened as a college with five students in 1960, according to Baltimore Sun archives.

In the 1995-96 school year, it merged with Lincoln Christian College in Illinois amid enrollment and financial struggles. It closed in the early 2000s.

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