Woman who disappeared won't be charged

No charges will be filed against a suburban woman who ditched her car with the motor running and ran away to California with a male friend last week, Cook County authorities said Monday.

Both Cook County sheriff's police and prosecutors reviewed the case of 24-year-old Anu Solanki, a resident of unincorporated Cook County near Des Plaines, who returned to the area Friday after fleeing her recently married husband Dec. 24.

"We have found that no criminal charges are appropriate," Cook County sheriff's police spokeswoman Penny Mateck said Monday.

Solanki told authorities she never meant to fake her disappearance. She told them she wanted a "clean and quick" break from her marriage.

After she left her job Dec. 24 at the Westin Hotel gift shop in Wheeling, she told her husband, Dignesh, she was headed to the river to dispose of a broken statue of a Hindu deity.

Investigators said she did throw the figure in the Des Plaines River in a Cook County Forest Preserve in Wheeling.

She then got into the car of a 23-year-old male friend -- Karan C. Jani -- and began driving to California.

Her disappearance prompted investigators to search the river and surrounding woods -- a search involving underwater divers and helicopters that investigators say cost $250,000.

Questions were raised after police tracked a call Solanki made to a female friend about the time of her disappearance and determined she most likely was driving westbound on I-88, not in Wheeling, at the time.

Solanki returned to the area to speak with investigators after the friend noticed the media coverage and impassioned pleas from family members. She told police she left her car because it belonged to her husband.

Authorities said they have not determined whether they might seek restitution for the costly search in civil court.

The young couple were born in India's Gujarat state and were married there Oct. 6, 2006, after Dignesh Solanki's mother introduced them. They held a second Hindu wedding May 6 in New Jersey.

Neither Diglesh nor Anu Solanki could be reached for comment Monday.

Dignesh Solanki, 27, had said last week he thought his wife was abducted or swept away in the Des Plaines River while trying to dispose of the broken Hindu statue.

After his wife turned up, Dignesh Solanki, a grocery store clerk, told a newspaper that he's angry with the male friend, a recent University of Southern California graduate who he says "messed my life up."

He also said the couple's marriage was strained, saying the two fought over finances and housekeeping.

But he said he loved Anu. Since they were married, they traveled to Las Vegas, the Wisconsin Dells and the Indiana Dunes, he said.

"If she had to run away, she could have told me she needed a break from me."