AMBER Alert issued for 16-year-old girl from Arkansas

Arkansas State Police issued an AMBER alert for a missing 16-year-old girl who was believed to be traveling with a 30-year-old man she met online.

Police were searching Monday for Autumn Nicole Lyon of Mineral Springs, Howard County, after she was reported missing Saturday and are believed to be with a man named Adrian Garces.

Autumn is described as a woman with long brown hair and “fair” skin. She is 5’7″ tall and weighs approximately 130 pounds (police photos show Autumn with blonde hair, but police reports say her hair is now brown).

She was reportedly last seen wearing a brown t-shirt, black leggings and white sneakers, with her hair tied in a ponytail.

Garces is described as a Hispanic man, 5 feet 8 inches tall, with brown hair and brown eyes and medium skin tone.

He was last seen wearing a blue collared shirt and jeans and has a tattoo on his left forearm, according to the alert.

According to police, the two may have traveled to Texas in a gray Ford F-150 pickup truck with the Texas license plate TTK 1766. There is an arrest warrant out for Garces.

Newsweek contacted Arkansas State Police via email outside of normal business hours for additional information.

Anyone with pertinent information regarding Autumn’s whereabouts is asked to contact Mineral Springs Police at (870) 845-2626.

Between 2007 and 2020, an average of 664,776 people disappeared in the United States, according to the government-funded National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUS) database. That equates to about 6.5 missing people per 100,000 people.

According to NamUS, there are currently 25,103 open missing persons cases across all U.S. states and territories. However, a disclaimer in the database states that it does not include all missing persons cases in the country, only those that have been voluntarily reported.

In February, Newsweek Mapping missing persons cases by state.

NamUS data at the time showed that Oklahoma had the highest percentage of missing people in the country, with 16 missing people per 100,000 residents, followed by Arizona with 14.2.

Louisiana and Arkansas were also above the national average. There were 11.6 missing people per 100,000 inhabitants in Arkansas.

Massachusetts had the lowest percentage at 2.7 per 100,000.

Separately, an AMBER alert for a missing three-year-old boy was lifted last month after he was found in Arkansas. The boy was initially believed to be wandering alone, but police said online that he is now safe.

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