A statewide CLEAR Alert is out for 25-year-old Bethany Lin, who authorities say left her Pearland home in a red SUV at roughly 2:50 a.m. Thursday and hasn't been seen since. Her cell phone was powered off shortly after she drove away from the 2700 block of Ravens Creek Drive, according to investigators. Police are asking anyone with information to call the Pearland Police Department at 281-997-4316.
The alert was issued by the Texas Center for the Missing on behalf of Pearland police, according to a post shared by TX Center 4 Missing. Lin was last seen wearing a baggy t-shirt over a tight-fitting tube top or sports bra and pants, though the colors of her clothing were not specified in the alert. The unidentified red SUV she was driving has not been further described publicly.
Why Police Escalated to a CLEAR Alert
Law enforcement officials expressed heightened concern for Lin's safety because she has a diagnosed mental health condition and was believed to be experiencing an active mental health crisis at the time of her disappearance, according to a missing person alert shared on Facebook. That distinction matters under Texas law: a statewide CLEAR Alert can only be issued after local police preliminarily verify that a missing adult between 18 and 64 is in imminent danger of bodily injury or death, or that the disappearance was involuntary, per the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Adults generally have the legal right to leave home on their own terms, which is why missing-adult cases like Lin's require police to clear a higher evidentiary bar before triggering an emergency broadcast. The combination of her reported mental health crisis, the sudden departure before 3 a.m., and her phone going dark soon after gave Pearland investigators the grounds they needed to request the statewide alert.
A Name Born From Tragedy
The Coordinated Law Enforcement Adult Rescue system — CLEAR Alert for short — was created by the Texas Legislature in 2019 after lawmakers identified a gap in emergency notifications between missing children under 18 and missing seniors 65 and older, as reported by CBS News. The program was championed by parent advocate Alison Steele and named in part to honor female crime victims in Texas, including 19-year-old Trinity University student Cayley Mandadi, who died in 2017.
The Texas Center for the Missing, which issued Thursday's alert, was founded in 2000 by Houston businesswoman Doreen Wise after the disappearance and death of her 17-year-old son, Gabriel Lester. The organization now serves as the regional emergency alert provider for 14 counties across Greater Houston. Texas law enforcement agencies recorded 40,309 missing person reports statewide in 2025, according to Department of Public Safety data compiled by the center — a volume that underscores how few cases ultimately meet the strict criteria for a public alert like the one issued for Lin.
Searching Across County Lines
Pearland's location complicates any search effort of this kind. The city is the third-largest municipality in the Greater Houston area, straddling Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Harris counties, with a population that has climbed past 127,514 according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That multi-county footprint is part of why regional alert hubs like the Texas Center for the Missing exist — to push description details out to law enforcement agencies and drivers well beyond a single department's jurisdiction.
Texas law places no mandatory waiting period on reporting a missing person, meaning families and police can act immediately rather than waiting 24 hours, according to Click2Houston. The CLEAR Alert is one of eight standardized statewide public safety alerts coordinated by the Department of Public Safety, which distributes notices through cellular broadcasts, electronic highway signs, lottery terminals, and social media. Hoodline previously reported on gaps in that alert system in its coverage of Texas's troubled Camo Alert program, and on a separate Pearland missing-person case in 2024 involving a teenager who was found safe after an AMBER Alert. Anyone with information on Bethany Lin's whereabouts is asked to contact the Pearland Police Department.
