Teen runs away to Scotland on parents' credit card

ST. LOUIS -- A teenager who clandestinely traveled to Scotland last weekend on her parents' credit card needed to get away from the stress of school, home and extracurricular activities, her father said.

Jingwen "Wendy" Chen, 15, of Rolla ran away from home last weekend and was gone for two days before her parents discovered she was missing.

She was supposed to go on a Rolla High School choir trip to Kansas City on Saturday, but she told school leaders she wasn't feeling well. When her parents, Genda and Sharon Chen, tried to pick her up Sunday night, they found out she hadn't gone to Kansas City.

Instead, using their credit card and racking up $3,000 in expenses, she took a Greyhound bus to St. Louis and a series of airline flights to London.

She flew from St. Louis to Detroit, on to Charleston, S.C., Washington and Philadelphia, before arriving in London, Genda Chen said.

Not knowing their daughter's whereabouts, the Chens contacted police and worried. Ultimately, they found her trail through charges on their credit card.

Early Thursday, Wendy contacted her father through e-mail, saying she had needed a break, Genda Chen said.

British authorities traced her to a hotel in Inverness, Scotland, where she was found Thursday morning. Her mother went to England and was to bring her back Friday.

Genda Chen said his daughter was motivated by stress from advanced academic classes and a heavy schedule of extracurricular activities. At home, she and her parents had argued about the time she spends on the Internet playing games, Chen said.

"Maybe she felt it was too much for her," he said. "She needed to be away for a while. It was not her trying to get away forever."