AUBURN — A 15-year-old girl reported missing from her grandmother’s home in early October was returned there Friday, police said.

Opal R. Swearingen had a history of running away, police said.

Authorities issued a missing persons alert earlier in the week. Evidence had shown she had returned to her grandmother’s home a short while after she went missing to retrieve personal items, police said. For that reason, they believed she was in the immediate area.

Swearingen was the subject of a missing persons police investigation earlier this year after she and 30-year-old Charles Fontenot of Lewiston refused to return home for nearly a month, police said. Fontenot is in jail.

On Friday, at roughly 5 p.m., she was found near her father’s home in this city. She was then returned to her grandmother’s home.