Missing Kips Bay Teen Jake Seaton Returns Home

Jake Seaton, 16, went missing on Thursday, May 10, 2012

NYPD

MANHATTAN — The search is finally over.

A missing Kips Bay teenager, Jake Seaton, 16, who disappeared on Thursday afternoon, returned home to his family Sunday.

It was an unbelievable Mother's Day surprise for Debra Seaton, who at first thought that a phone call from police in Summit, N.J., saying they'd found her son, was a hoax.

"I didn't believe the police officer, I thought he was making a prank call," said Seaton.

Instead she spent Mother's Day with her Jake and the rest of the family back home on East 33rd Street.

"It doesn't even matter what day it is, any day would be Mother's Day if he came home," she said.

"We're having a great day today, and he's enjoying being with his family."

According to Debra Seaton, who notified DNAinfo.com New York by e-mail of Jake's return, police called her Sunday morning and had taken Jake in, after recognizing him from posters.

"He wasn't running away from home, he was just a little frustrated with the world," Seaton told DNAinfo.com New York.

"He was going to try and do some good, he didn't want to buy into all the pressures here in New York City," she said. "He's just a very mature kid, he's very wise for his age."

"He worries about much bigger, deeper things than most kids his age. He thinks about things that he shouldn't worry about yet."

Seaton's family had set up a Facebook page to spread the word about his disappearance and share information, after the boy disappeared from his family's Kips Bay apartment sometime around 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 10th.

The 17th Precinct Detective Squad had put out fliers Saturday with his photo, and noted that Jake Seaton could be suffering from depression or suicidal.

Debra Seaton corrected that notion, saying she's not sure how investigators got that impression initially from their questioning.

"I can't clearly remember everything I told them, but I'm sure I didn't say that," she said. "He was never suicidal," however, she added that if they had asked if he was troubled, "they might have interpreted that as as that, I don't know."