Photo Taken From Window Led to Missing NC Teen

Shaunna and Anthony Burns awoke on May 23, 2016, to find their daughter missing and their front door unlocked. It is believed Hailey Burns, then 16, left the home in Charlotte, NC, and was picked up less than a mile away by a man she'd met online. A year passed with no word from her. Then on Friday, Hailey's parents were contacted by a woman living in Romania, per WSOC. "I got a message that said, 'I've been in communication with your daughter and she's alive and she wants to come home,' and from there it has been like an avalanche," Shaunna Burns tells WSOC. She adds the woman told her Hailey, now 17, had seen news coverage of her disappearance and understood her parents loved her and wanted her home.

The Romanian woman asked Hailey to take a photo from a window of the home in which she was staying, which helped authorities find her, reports Fox News. Police say Hailey, who has Asperger's Syndrome, was rescued from the Duluth, Ga., home of 31-year-old Michael Ren Wysolovski just after midnight Saturday. Though happy her daughter is safe, Shaunna Burns says it's "really, really hard" knowing someone hurt her. "She's not the same person that left and that is definitely the hardest part of this," dad Anthony Burns adds, noting his daughter is exhausted and has lost 15 to 20 pounds. Wysolovski appeared in court Monday to face charges of false imprisonment, cruelty to children, and aggravated sodomy, and was denied bond. (More missing teen stories.)