Jacksonville police are asking for the public's help finding 11-year-old Jordyn Carter, who was last seen leaving her home on Kenmore Street near Interstate 95 sometime between 6 and 8 p.m. on Thursday. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office described her as 4 feet 10 inches tall and about 90 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair, and said she was last known to be wearing a green Hello Kitty shirt, blue jeans, and pink slides.
The sheriff's office shared Jordyn's description in a public alert posted Friday morning, urging the community to spread the notice quickly. Anyone who sees Jordyn or knows where she is should call the Jax Sheriff's Office non-emergency line at 904-630-0500; the department noted its social media account is not monitored around the clock, so calling directly is the fastest way to reach investigators. Kenmore Street sits in Jacksonville's 32208 ZIP code, within the Tallulah-North Shore and Brentwood sections of the city's Northside, an area that runs directly alongside I-95 and sees heavy highway-adjacent traffic, according to Zillow.
Why This Is a Missing Child Alert, Not an AMBER Alert
Jordyn's case has been handled as a Missing Child Alert rather than an AMBER Alert, a distinction that shapes how widely — and how fast — the public gets notified. Under Florida Department of Law Enforcement guidelines, a Missing Child Alert is issued when a child under 18 is believed to be in danger but there is no evidence of an abduction, while an AMBER Alert requires investigators to have a well-founded belief, based on an active investigation, that a kidnapping has actually occurred.
That distinction matters because AMBER Alerts trigger automated wireless emergency alerts pushed directly to cellphones, while Missing Child Alerts rely on news coverage, digital platforms, and social media sharing instead, per the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Local officials in Duval County have said the same thing to First Coast News in the past: a missing child report does not automatically ping residents' phones unless investigators establish that the case meets the state's AMBER Alert criteria. Florida's alert protocol also requires that the missing child be under 18, that law enforcement determine danger through an active investigation, that descriptive information or photos be available, and that the local agency formally request activation through FDLE's Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse.
A Pattern of Searches Along the Northside Corridor
Jordyn's disappearance comes just two days after Jacksonville police sought help finding a 7-year-old boy, Chace Brown, near the same I-95 corridor. The same week also brought a search for a Jacksonville man with autism who went missing after being released from the Duval County jail, and a separate search in Lake City for 13-year-old Leah Pager. Not every recent Jacksonville-area case has ended in tragedy — last month, multiple agencies located a missing Georgia girl safe at a Scottish Inn in Jacksonville.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has recently built out its digital tools for these searches. In June, the department launched dedicated Wanted and Missing Persons web portals featuring case photos, last-seen details, and direct tip submission forms, building on its earlier unsolved-crimes portal. The agency also runs the Registry for Endangered, Vulnerable and Missing Persons, known as R.E.V.A.M.P., a voluntary database developed with the City of Jacksonville and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department that helps first responders locate vulnerable residents, including those with cognitive, memory, or physical conditions, at no cost to Duval County families.
How to Report a Tip
Anyone with information about Jordyn's whereabouts can also submit an anonymous tip 24 hours a day through First Coast Crime Stoppers by calling 1-866-845-TIPS or using the P3 Tips mobile app; the organization, an independent nonprofit partly funded by the City of Jacksonville, offers cash rewards for tips that help resolve cases. Statewide, Florida law enforcement agencies field roughly 28,000 missing-children reports each year, a volume that has led the state to hold an annual Missing Children's Day event in Tallahassee.
National figures from the Missing Children Global Network show Florida ranked among the top three states for missing-child reports in 2023, alongside California and Texas, with 2,646 cases reported that year. The vast majority of those cases are resolved successfully, with more than 90 percent of missing children nationally eventually found, according to the same data. For now, Jacksonville police have not released further details about the circumstances of Jordyn's disappearance beyond the timeline and description shared Friday.
