A Fort Pierce woman has been missing for 10 days after she was last seen getting a ride from a truck driver bound for Memphis, Tennessee, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office. Racqueal Annalessa Martin was last seen on Aug. 14, and deputies say she was reported missing after traveling roughly 800 miles from Florida's Treasure Coast toward the Mid-South.
According to the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, Martin went to a Love's Travel Stop in Fort Pierce before catching a ride with a truck driver who was headed to a Love's location in Memphis. Fort Pierce has two Love's plazas along the Interstate 95 corridor, including Store #415 at 7150 Okeechobee Road near Exit 129 and Store #467 at 200 South Kings Highway near Exit 131B, per Love's Travel Stops. It is unclear from the sheriff's office bulletin which of the two Fort Pierce locations Martin visited.
Deputies describe Martin as a Black female standing 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing approximately 140 pounds, with hazel-colored hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black and white shorts, black flip-flops, and a black and green shirt printed with the words “Get Money,” and she was carrying a dark-colored bag, according to the same account.
An 800-Mile Trip Across State Lines
The drive between Fort Pierce and Memphis covers roughly 800 to 860 miles of interstate highway and typically takes 13 to 15 hours behind the wheel, per Rome2Rio. That distance means Martin's case now spans at least two states, raising the kind of multi-jurisdictional questions that complicate missing person investigations when a person's last known movement crosses state lines.
Once in the Memphis area, the trail described by the sheriff's office would have led toward one of two nearby Love's facilities: Store #344 in Memphis itself, or Store #450 just across the Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas, off Interstate 40, according to Love's Travel Stops. Neither the Fort Pierce nor the Memphis-area location has been specifically confirmed as Martin's final known stop in the bulletin.
What Florida Law Requires Once a Report Is Filed
Florida law does not allow agencies to sit on a missing person report. Under Florida Statute § 937.021, law enforcement agencies statewide are required to accept and begin investigating a missing person report immediately, with no mandatory waiting period, according to the Florida Senate. That mandate helps explain why Martin's case became active before she had even been gone two weeks.
The same statute sets a longer-term protocol if a case remains unsolved: after 90 days, investigating agencies must attempt to collect a biological DNA sample from family members for entry into a national database, per the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation. Florida also runs the nation's first statewide missing persons clearinghouse, MEPIC, established under the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 1985, which coordinates data and alerts across the state's 67 counties, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Florida's Missing Persons Numbers
Martin's disappearance adds to a state that already leads the nation in open cases. Florida recorded 289 active missing person cases in the U.S. Department of Justice's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in late 2025, more than any other state, according to the Department of Justice. Officials have attributed the volume in part to Florida's size, its transient population, and heavy interstate traffic.
St. Lucie County deputies have previously mobilized significant resources for missing person searches. In October 2025, the sheriff's office deployed aviation, drone, K-9, and dive units during a multi-day search that ended with a missing woman found alive in rural woods in the county, as Hoodline previously reported.
How to Help
Because Martin's last known movements involve long-haul trucking routes, industry safety programs could play a role in generating leads. Truckers Against Trafficking trains commercial drivers and travel plaza employees across North America to spot and report suspicious activity or missing individuals along interstate corridors, according to the American Trucking Associations. Anyone with information on Martin's whereabouts is asked to call 911 or contact Detective Corporal Bogner directly at 772-462-3230. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-800-273-TIPS (8477) or through the P3 Tips mobile app, per the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)