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John Hollenhorst Reporting An eight-year-old girl is safe at home in Ogden tonight after police searched for her for much of the day.
Virginia Peoples/Mother: "I didn't know what to think. I was just happy she was okay, she was still alive and she was safe."
Her parents feared the worst, but it appears that Alexis Daniel spent most of the day on something of a shopping spree.
Someday, Alexis Daniel may laugh about what happened today. But tonight she's feeling bad, and her parents are feeling relief after a day in which they feared something terrible had happened to her.
Alexis Daniel apparently spent pretty much the whole day at the Wal-Mart in Harrisville. It's two and a half miles from her home, where her father woke up at 9 am and discovered she was missing.
David Daniel/ Alexis' Father: "We start going through the house from top to bottom looking for her. I go to the back door and I find the door unlocked and I think, 'Oh man, maybe she walked to her mom's house.'"
Alexis Daniel: "I was heading to my mom's place and I got sidetracked and headed towards Wal-Mart."
Alexis says she shopped for hours and then walked across the parking lot to a Chili's restaurant for dinner. Police say she had a boxed dinner of chicken strips and asked the Chili's employees to heat it up. She also had a shopping cart full of goodies from the Wal-Mart.
Travis Nutley/ Ogden Police Dept.: "Clothing, some food, some bagged vegetables, some princess shoes I guess she enjoyed, some little toys."
Police say they don't believe she used a credit card at the Wal-Mart. She apparently just loaded up the shopping cart and pushed it out of the store. She even put on pajamas and shoes she took from the Wal-Mart.
Police came to the Chili's because a customer noticed Alexis after hearing an alert about the missing girl.
Alexis Daniel: "I was scared of the cops."
"Do you think you did anything wrong today?"
Alexis: "I think I did."
This is the third time Alexis has walked out the door of the Dad's house and headed toward her Mom's. It's apparently the first time she was sidetracked so badly.
Wal-Mart has decided not to press charges.
