A 15-year-old Homestead girl has been missing since Friday morning, and it is not the first time she has vanished under circumstances that worried investigators. Normayia Mayfield was last seen near Southwest 338th Street around 9 a.m., according to detectives, and Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office investigators are now asking the public for help finding her.
Mayfield was wearing a long-sleeved light blue jean jacket, a pink knee-length dress, and teal-colored crocs when she disappeared, as reported by WSVN. Anyone with information about her whereabouts is being urged to contact MDSO Deputy D. Guzman at 305-715-3300 or 305-715-3292, or by email at [email protected]. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS (8477).
A Case With A Troubling Precedent
This is not the first time Mayfield has gone missing under circumstances that alarmed authorities. In June, she was reported missing in Homestead after last being seen on June 11 in the 500 block of Southwest 6th Street, according to Local 10 News. Police said at the time that she suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, was not in her right state of mind, and had refused her prescribed medications before she was safely located two days later.
It is not clear from available information whether Mayfield currently has access to her required medications, or whether her latest disappearance is connected to the same mental health concerns that marked her June episode. What is documented is that the June case was resolved within 48 hours after public appeals from police, offering some reassurance even as the search resumes.
Who Is Leading The Search
The investigation is being coordinated by the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, the agency that officially transitioned back into an independent sheriff's office in January 2025, when Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz was sworn in as the county's first elected sheriff in nearly 60 years, per Miami-Dade County. That institutional shift explains why deputies searching for Mayfield are identified under MDSO rather than the former MDPD acronym.
The agency's Missing Persons Unit has a strong record in these kinds of cases. From January 2024 through April 2025, the unit was assigned 1,769 missing person cases and successfully located 1,653 endangered juveniles and adults, a 93% recovery rate that earned it the 2025 Commissioner's Award, according to the Florida Missing Children's Day Foundation.
Broader Trends In Missing Youth Cases
Nationally, endangered runaways accounted for 92% of all missing child cases reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025, according to MissingKids.org. That organization assisted law enforcement with 32,167 missing child reports nationwide last year, resolving 29,013 of them for an overall recovery rate of 90%.
Florida ranks among the top states in the country for missing children reports, trailing only California and Texas, with more than 2,600 cases reported to NCMEC annually, per the Missing Children Global Network. In 2024, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued 404 missing person alerts statewide through its Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, including 84 Missing Child Alerts and 9 AMBER Alerts. The FDLE also manages Purple Alerts for missing adults or individuals with cognitive or mental health disabilities, a tool South Florida agencies have used before in similar situations — in July 2025, Homestead police and MDSO deputies safely located a 36-year-old missing Homestead man who had stopped taking required medication after a Purple Alert led to his safe recovery, before he was placed under Florida's Baker Act for evaluation.
It remains unresolved whether state authorities plan to issue a formal alert in Mayfield's case, and it is unclear what support services, if any, are currently being provided to her family. For now, investigators are relying on the public to come forward with any information that could help bring her home safely.
