Tampa Police Search for Missing 15-Year-Old Tariah Berry, Last Seen on MacDill Ave

A 15-year-old Tampa girl has been missing since Sunday afternoon, last seen walking alone in a busy residential corridor near one of the city's major children's hospitals, and police say they still don't know where she was headed. Tariah Berry was last seen around 1 p.m. on foot in the 4900 block of North MacDill Avenue, according to police, wearing a brown tank top, brown leggings, and a brown-and-tan flannel overshirt.

The Tampa Police Department is now asking the public for help finding her, according to the Tampa Free Press, which first reported her disappearance. Berry is described as 5 feet 4 inches tall and about 165 pounds. Police have not released any information about where she might be heading, and anyone who sees her or knows her whereabouts is asked to call police at 813-231-6130. The case has been logged under case number 26-498697.

A Busy Corridor Near a Children's Hospital

The stretch of North MacDill Avenue where Berry was last seen sits in Northwest Tampa's Plaza Terrace neighborhood, home to the Fernwood Grove Apartments, a multi-building residential complex located near major healthcare facilities including St. Joseph's Children's Hospital, according to RentCafe. The area's mix of dense housing and commercial traffic gives investigators a wide radius to canvass as they try to reconstruct her movements from that Sunday afternoon.

Florida's Strict Legal Clock on Missing Minors

Whatever direction the investigation takes, Tampa Police are bound by tight statutory deadlines. Under Florida Statute § 937.021, law enforcement agencies must accept a missing child report immediately, with no waiting period, notify all on-duty officers, alert surrounding county agencies, and enter the case into state and national crime databases within two hours. The law applies regardless of whether investigators suspect Berry left on her own.

Florida also maintains a broader safety net for cases like this one. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement operates the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse under Florida Statute § 937.022, a state repository that coordinates communications and recordkeeping for missing children under 18 and young adults up to age 25, and it runs a toll-free tip line at 1-888-FL-MISSING. Separately, FDLE's Missing Child Alert system, created in 2003, can broadcast media emergency alerts for missing youth believed to be in life-threatening danger without requiring proof of an abduction, though local agencies must request activation based on their own investigative findings. It remains an open question whether Tampa Police will seek that designation in Berry's case.

Part of a Wider Regional Pattern

Berry's disappearance adds to a string of missing-teen cases that have played out across the Tampa Bay region this August, including Pasco, Pinellas, Citrus, and Manatee counties, where agencies have leaned on community tips and fast-moving social media appeals to close cases. Hoodline has covered several of these searches in recent weeks, including an Inverness teen possibly headed to Marion County and a Wesley Chapel 14-year-old who vanished from Bluff Meadow Court. Nationally, the vast majority of missing children are eventually found: the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports it supported 32,167 missing child cases in 2025, with endangered runaways making up 92% of reported cases and recovery rates reaching 90%, per MissingKids.org.

Florida itself remains one of the busiest states in the country for these reports. The state trailed only California and Texas in total annual NCMEC missing child caseloads, with the organization assisting on 2,646 cases in Florida in 2023 and resolving 2,740 that year, according to the Missing Children Global Network. Tampa Police's Special Victims Unit has previously coordinated with regional partners, the U.S. Marshals Service, and FDLE on operations that have recovered missing and endangered youth across Hillsborough County, including a 20-agency regional effort that recovered 60 missing children across the Tampa Bay area in mid-2025, according to WUSF.

For now, investigators have not disclosed whether they believe Berry left voluntarily or whether foul play is a concern, and they have not said whether surveillance footage from businesses along MacDill Avenue captured which direction she went. Anyone with information on her location is urged to contact the Tampa Police Department.