HANOVER, Jamaica — Challen Evans, the 27-year-old University of the West Indies student who went missing in the community of Orchard in Hanover on Christmas Day, has been found.

The young woman was found today around 3:22 pm on the Orchard Beach at Hopewell in the parish. The beach is located adjacent to the Northern Coastal Highway, with the community in which she went missing located on the other side of the road.

Superintendent of police Sharon Beeput told the OBSERVER ONLINE that the young woman is alive and was taken to the hospital for assessment.

“She is recuperating well. Apparently, a little bit dehydrated but she is getting some medical attention,” stated Superintendent Beeput.

An overwhelmed Beeput said that the police are not able to say if the young woman was lost or the circumstances that led her to the beach at this time.

“She is not in a state as yet where she can explain what had happened to her and what went wrong. We can just assume that probably she was because we don’t know,” Beeput explained, adding “we just want to know that she recuperates, gets back her energy, and she is alive and well.”

Evans, who is from the community of Clifton in Hanover, went missing shortly after 7:00 am on Christmas Day. She was reportedly visiting her child’s father in Orchard when she ran from the house. Her child’s grandfather, Neville ‘Bibby’ Humphry, told OBSERVER ONLINE that she was depressed.

It is reported that Evans last had a conversation with her father on the phone on Christmas Day, during which she asked him to come get her. She reportedly told the father that she was in a river that had no water.

Anthony Lewis