A 17-year-old Cleveland girl has been missing for more than eight months, and police are still asking the public to help bring her home. Kanieya Marshay Washington was reported missing on December 9, 2025, and her case remains open under the primary investigation of the Cleveland Division of Police.
The case is listed in the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation missing child database under NCIC case number M348741268, according to the Ohio Attorney General's office. The public broadcast highlighting her case, first aired by FOX 8 News, asks anyone with information to call a toll-free hotline at 1-866-492-6833.
A Hotline Tied to Federal-Local Cooperation
That number is connected to joint operations run through the U.S. Marshals Service, including efforts like Operation Meridian, which pair federal resources with local police to locate missing children across Northern Ohio, per footage shared on YouTube. The Northern District's marshals have a track record in this kind of work; an earlier initiative known as Operation Safety Net recovered 57 missing and endangered children across the region during its initial phase, according to a report from Diply.
FOX 8 Cleveland's ongoing missing-persons segments are produced in partnership with Amanda Berry, the kidnapping survivor and advocate who joined the station in 2017 to help raise public awareness of missing children and adults across Northeast Ohio, according to a Facebook post from ABC News. Berry escaped a decade of captivity in Cleveland in 2013 and has since worked alongside law enforcement on missing youth searches, per that same account.
What State Data Shows About Missing Kids in Ohio
Washington's case sits within a much larger statewide picture. The Ohio Attorney General's Office reported in May that 15,367 children were reported missing across the state in 2025, a decrease of 1,037 cases from the year before, according to WTOL 11. Of those cases, 97.8 percent, or 15,024 youth, were recovered safely by year's end, while six were found deceased, the station reported.
Runaway incidents made up the vast majority of those reports, at 7,656 cases statewide, compared with 22 noncustodial parent abductions and just two stranger abductions, per the same account. The Cleveland Division of Police has emphasized that families do not need to wait 24 hours to report a missing child, a policy meant to dispel a persistent misconception and allow investigators to gather fresh photos, dental records, and location details as quickly as possible, according to Signal Cleveland.
The Risks of Extended Time Missing
National researchers have flagged the dangers that can accompany prolonged disappearances among teenagers. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported in January that of more than 32,000 missing child cases it handled nationally in 2025, roughly one in seven missing runaways were estimated to be at risk of child sex trafficking or exploitation, according to a Facebook post from the organization.
State policymakers have also been examining how investigations are handled. In May 2025, an Ohio working group studying missing persons cases submitted 18 policy and legislative recommendations to Governor Mike DeWine, calling for better inter-agency data sharing, improved communication with families, and expanded support for youth who repeatedly leave care, according to the Statehouse News Bureau.
Washington's disappearance comes amid a string of recent missing-youth cases in Cleveland. Hoodline has also reported on a missing teen sprinter and on two Toledo foster girls who were found in a Cleveland apartment. The specific circumstances surrounding Washington's disappearance have not been publicly detailed, and anyone with information is asked to call the hotline listed above.
