A 36-year-old New Port Richey man reported missing and endangered before dawn has been found safe, according to an update from local deputies. Jahzeel Beltran was last seen around 2:50 a.m. in the Washington Street area of New Port Richey, wearing a white t-shirt, khaki pants and black sandals, before deputies launched a search and later confirmed he had been located.
According to the Pasco Sheriff, deputies had described Beltran as having brown hair and brown eyes, standing about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing around 200 pounds, as they asked the public for any information on his whereabouts. The original bulletin, issued by the Pasco Sheriff's Office, designated him a missing and endangered adult and asked anyone with tips to call the agency's non-emergency line at 727-847-8102, option 7, or submit information through its online portal. The Pasco Sheriff's Office noted that its social media account isn't monitored around the clock and urged anyone with an active emergency to call 911 instead.
A Busy Stretch for Pasco Missing Person Searches
Beltran's case emerged amid a cluster of missing-adult searches in the same western Pasco County city over a 48-hour span. The day before Beltran disappeared, the sheriff's office opened a separate search in New Port Richey for 66-year-old Rose Beede, who was also reported missing and endangered, per the same account. That same day, deputies launched another pre-dawn search in New Port Richey for 41-year-old Curtis LeMasters, last seen near Little Road and Massachusetts Avenue — a case Hoodline detailed in its report on the search for Curtis LeMasters.
The rapid pace at which these cases moved from disappearance to public alert reflects a statutory mandate rather than agency discretion. Under Florida Statute 937.021, law enforcement agencies statewide are barred from imposing any waiting period before accepting a missing adult report, according to the Online Sunshine statutes database, which directly counters the persistent myth that families must wait 24 to 48 hours before deputies will act.
How Florida Classifies an Endangered Missing Adult
Florida Statute 937.0201 defines a missing endangered person to include adults 26 or older whom a law enforcement agency suspects may be endangered or the victim of criminal activity, as well as those who meet Silver or Purple Alert criteria, per the Florida Senate. That statutory threshold is what allows deputies to escalate a case like Beltran's beyond a routine report and deploy additional search resources quickly.
Beyond local deputies, the state maintains its own infrastructure for these cases. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement operates the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, established by the Legislature in 1996 to provide around-the-clock analytical and investigative support and issue public missing alerts statewide, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Florida was the first state in the nation to establish a centralized missing persons clearinghouse of this kind. Separately, Florida's Purple Alert system, established under Florida Statute 937.0205 and updated in 2024, allows agencies to issue targeted local or statewide broadcasts for missing adults with a mental, cognitive or physical disability, per the Florida House of Representatives analysis, filling the gap between Silver Alerts for elderly residents and general missing person reports.
The scale of these cases statewide is significant: more than 3,200 individuals were registered as missing or endangered in the National Crime Information Center database across Florida as of February 2025, according to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office. Against that backdrop, Beltran's case is one of several recent New Port Richey searches that Pasco deputies have resolved quickly, following other cases Hoodline has covered involving a missing Port Richey woman and a Wesley Chapel teen found safe after a weeklong search.
The Pasco Sheriff's Office has not released further details about where or how Beltran was located, consistent with its general practice of withholding specifics on recoveries to protect personal privacy when no crime is suspected. Anyone with information on missing persons cases in the area can still reach deputies through the same non-emergency line or the agency's online tip portal.
