Kyla Craig, 16, Missing From Dade City, Florida

Pasco Sheriff's deputies are searching for 16-year-old Kyla Craig, who was last seen Monday around 5 p.m. in the Colina Drive area of Dade City. Craig is described as 5 feet 1 inch tall, weighing around 120 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Investigators say they do not yet know what she was wearing when she disappeared.

The Pasco Sheriff is asking anyone with information about Craig's whereabouts to come forward, and the agency's post identifies her as a missing or runaway teenager. Tips can be submitted online at pascosheriff.com/tips or by calling the non-emergency line at 727-847-8102 and selecting option 7. The Pasco Sheriff's Office has noted that its social media accounts are not monitored around the clock, so anyone with urgent information is directed to use those official channels rather than commenting on posts.

Pasco Sheriff's deputies are currently searching for Kyla Craig, a missing/runaway 16-year-old. Craig is 5’1”, around 120 lbs., with black hair, and brown eyes. Craig was last seen on Aug. 22, around 5 p.m., in the Colina Dr. area of Dade City. It is unknown what Craig was last… pic.twitter.com/Rb4QhGZkfL

— Pasco Sheriff (@PascoSheriff) August 24, 2026

That guidance reflects a broader agency policy: Pasco Sheriff's Office disabled public comments on its missing-person alerts back in 2022 specifically to prevent time-sensitive tips from getting buried in online replies, according to Hoodline's earlier reporting on a similar case involving a Land O' Lakes teen found safe. The policy is meant to route every piece of public information directly to dispatchers and investigators rather than letting it sit in a comment thread.

What Florida Law Requires in Cases Like This

Regardless of whether Craig left voluntarily, Florida law treats her case with the same urgency as any other missing-child report. Under Florida Statute § 937.0201, any missing person under 18 is legally classified as both a “missing child” and a “missing endangered person,” according to an analysis from the Florida Senate. That designation obligates law enforcement to deploy full search protocols rather than treating the report as a low-priority youth departure.

Florida Statute § 937.021 goes further, prohibiting agencies from enforcing any waiting period before accepting a missing child report and requiring that case details be entered into state and national databases within two hours. The rule is designed to ensure the case gets multi-jurisdictional visibility during the earliest, most critical hours of a disappearance.

Specialized Resources Behind the Search

The Pasco Sheriff's Office operates a Missing and Abducted Child Team, known as MATCH, certified through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's Missing Kids Readiness Program. Per the Pasco Sheriff's Office, the team can deploy specialized detectives, intelligence analysts, K-9 units, and aerial drones during juvenile searches.

Craig's disappearance is the latest in a string of missing-teen cases Pasco deputies have handled in recent weeks. Just days earlier, deputies searched for missing 13-year-old Jaysean Parker out of New Port Richey, while a Land O' Lakes teen, Jaeda Benitez-Laboy, was found safe after a seven-week search. Earlier in the month, a Wesley Chapel teen, Dakota Rubel, was found safe after a weeklong search, and another Wesley Chapel teenager, Serenity Bell, was reported missing from Bluff Meadow Court.

Runaways Make Up Most Missing-Child Cases

Nationally, the vast majority of juvenile missing-person cases involve voluntary runaways rather than abductions. Data from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children indicates that endangered runaways accounted for 92% of the 32,167 missing child cases the organization supported in 2025. In Florida specifically, law enforcement agencies log nearly 28,000 missing children reports annually, with the vast majority resolved safely and quickly, according to statistics reported by News4JAX.

Dade City, where Craig was last seen, serves as the county seat of Pasco County but covers under eight square miles and had an estimated population of just 8,646 residents in 2023, according to Wikipedia. That's a stark contrast to the rest of Pasco County, which reached an estimated 674,516 residents by 2025, a 20% growth rate since 2020 that has placed increasing public safety demands on local deputies.

As of now, investigators have not released any additional details about Craig's direction of travel or the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Pasco Sheriff's Office through its official tip channels.