An anonymous caller rang the Chicago police after spotting the teens. The pair was found in a parked Ford SUV on the north side of Chicago, said police spokesman John Mirabelli.
The car was next to a gas station and out of gas.
The teens’ parents have been notified and are en route to pick them up, Mirabelli said.
Braxton Wood, 14, and his girlfriend, Jayden Thomas, 13, were believed to have driven off August 26 in Wood’s parents’ 2005 black Ford Explorer with about $80 in cash.
Until Sunday, no one in Isabella County, located about 160 miles northwest of Detroit, had heard from them.
Police considered the teens runaways (they didn’t issue an Amber Alert) and said there was no reason to believe they faced imminent danger.
Before they were found, Braxton’s mother, Sarah Kiley, told HLN’s Kyra Phillips she thought they had a pretty healthy relationship, though it had been on-again, off-again recently.
“They felt like they were very much in love. And that’s intense for 13- and 14-year-olds. But I felt like it was a positive (relationship),” Kiley said Friday on HLN’s Raising America.
She pleaded then for both teens to come home.
“It’s been too long. We know they have to be scared. They’re young. They don’t have any resources to make it on their own. And if they’re scared to come home, please don’t be. We’ll support them in whatever they need. We just need them home. Life can’t go on without them here.”
CNN’s John Branch and Mark Morgenstein contributed to this report.
