Just four months ago Laura Dekker was a carefree 13-year-old with an extraordinary dream _ to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world. On Tuesday, police hauled her home _ clutching a suitcase and guitar _ from a mystery trip to the Caribbean, and child care workers sought to remove her from her father's custody.

Dutch judges scuppered Laura's dream in August when they ruled she was too inexperienced to set off in a sailboat on her own. They came to the same conclusion in a second judgment in October, and appointed a guardian to ensure she did not try to set sail anyway.

The decisions, and the media attention surrounding them, sent Laura into a downward spiral that is thought to have led to her running away from home last week and flying, apparently alone, 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) to the Dutch Caribbean territory of St. Maarten.

Police are investigating how she managed to get there via Paris with euro3,500 ($5,000) in cash and why she left in the first place. European rules bar children from flying alone on intercontinental flights without permission from a parent. Police interviewed Laura on Tuesday as soon as she landed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, but gave no details of what she told them.

Laura's lawyer Peter de Lange later told reporters that she sidestepped the European regulations by flying out of Paris on her New Zealand passport. Laura has dual nationality because she was born on a boat in New Zealand while her parents were sailing around the world.

Police are investigating whether she got help boarding the plane.

"I don't think she did it alone, but we are not sure," said police spokesman Bernhard Jens. He declined to elaborate and said police had no immediate plans to interview her father, who is divorced from Laura's mother.

A family spokeswoman complained that Laura's lawyer was not present for the questioning.

De Lange spoke as he waited for a court's decision on youth welfare workers' request to remove Laura from her father's home. He said Laura planned to spend the night at friends of the family.

The court was not expected to reach a decision Tuesday night.

Laura's grandparents on her father's side blame welfare workers for transforming her.

"Since the Bureau of Youth Care got involved, we have seen Laura change from a positive teenager into a child who has built a shield around herself and lost all trust in adults," Dick and Riek Dekker wrote in a letter published Tuesday in the Dutch press.