By Cynthia Koons
His 14-year-old daughter, Maria Teresa Lopez, has been missing from their College Point home since Jan. 18, when she ran away from home after getting into a fight at school. “We were discussing with the parents and the other girl the situation and she got really upset and she just ran off,” her stepmother, Janette Matos, said. “I think it just has to do with a lot more. I don't think it really has to do with this.” Matos heard that the fight was over an ex-boyfriend. Maria Teresa Lopez, known at school as Maria and at home as Teresa, was raised by her biological mother until she was 2 years old when her mother abandoned her, Matos and Lopez said. She grew up with her maternal grandmother in Astoria, where her mother would occasionally come back into the picture, Matos and Lopez said. But for the most part, her mother was largely absent from Maria Teresa's life, the couple said, leaving the teenage girl with an anger she could not resolve. “It's just too much baggage,” Matos said. Maria Teresa began living with Matos and Lopez at their College Point home on 125th Street and 6th Avenue in April. She was attending JHS 194 in Whitestone up until the day she got in the fight. Officials at the school could not comment on the girl's disappearance. Her stepmother said Maria Teresa's grades were improving, but right after the winter break they started to drop again. “She wasn't involved in anything after school, she would just come home. She was supposedly focusing more on schoolwork and studying to bring up her grades,” Matos said. “Her father is worried sick, the pressure is really sky high,” she said. Lopez, the owner of a motorcycle shop in Astoria, is an auxiliary police officer who has tapped into his law enforcement resources for clues. “I did my homework, I went around places I thought she would be – nightclubs, teenage nightclubs,” Lopez said. “I almost got robbed in a very bad nightclub by Shea Stadium. I go every place I can think of.” The president of a local, Guardian Angels-style watchdog group called the United Eagles Law Enforcement Club, Lopez has used his team to distribute fliers with his daughter's picture on it. At home he tries to console their two other children, who live with the couple. “I caught my son at night at the window, he says 'is Teresa coming back, Dad?'” Lopez said. “I said, 'I don't know what to tell you.' I just break down and cry sometimes.” Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
