Anu Solanki wanted out of her marriage, so the 24-year-old Indian woman met a male friend at a Chicago-area forest reserve on Christmas Eve, jumped into his car and headed down the highway for what she hoped would be a new life in southern California.
Only days later, she told investigators, did she learn from an online report that her disappearance had made headlines and prompted a costly search by authorities, who had feared that Solanki might have drowned in a river that runs through the forest reserve.
"She expressed regret and embarrassment," Cook County sheriff's office spokesman Bill Cunningham said on Saturday, a day after Solanki flew back to Chicago from Los Angeles and spoke to investigators for several hours.
"She claims she in no way meant to deceive people into thinking she fell into the Des Plaines River," he said.
Police spent about US$250,000 on their search, which included divers and a helicopter. Her family also handed out flyers with Solanki's picture.
"Obviously we're upset that so many individuals have had to work on this for so many days and that so many resources were spent on it," Cunningham said. "But she maintained she had no idea it would create the kind of reaction it did."
Police will meet with prosecutors soon to determine if Solanki broke any laws, but Cunningham declined to say what charges she could possibly face.
"The first thing you'd think of is making a false report. But she didn't make a false report," he said. "It's not a crime to deceive your husband and family."
"She didn't want to have any of his possessions and wanted to completely break with him," Cunningham said.
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