Zephyrhills Teen Zadock Wao, 17, Found Safe After Second Vanishing Act

A 17-year-old Zephyrhills boy who vanished from the Doe Path Court area last evening has been found safe, the Pasco Sheriff's Office announced early Tuesday. Zadock Wao was last seen around 6:45 p.m. Monday, prompting deputies to launch a public search that ended within hours with word that he had been located.

The Pasco Sheriff's Office, which serves communities across west central Florida, shared the resolution in a brief update on social media, writing simply that Wao had been found and is safe, according to the Pasco Sheriff. Deputies had described Wao as a missing and endangered 17-year-old standing 6-foot-2 and weighing around 130 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. His clothing at the time he disappeared was not specified in the alert.

Update: Wao was found and is safe. https://t.co/JYZX4ILmKA

— Pasco Sheriff (@PascoSheriff) August 18, 2026

Investigators noted that Wao may have been driving a 2020 silver Dodge Charger R/T bearing a Georgia license plate, CZZ6680, as they worked to track his movements. The vehicle detail suggested deputies were pursuing a specific lead on his whereabouts rather than simply waiting for a passive report to develop.

A Familiar Street, A Familiar Alert

This was not the first time Wao had gone missing from the same stretch of Zephyrhills. Public records reviewed by the Tampa Free Press show that Wao, then 16, was reported missing and endangered from the same Doe Path Court neighborhood in May 2025 before being located safe shortly afterward. The recurrence from the identical block likely shaped how quickly deputies moved this time, given their prior familiarity with the case.

Under Florida law, deputies had no choice but to move fast regardless of history. Florida Statute § 937.0201 automatically classifies any missing person under 18 as a missing child and missing endangered person, guaranteeing full investigative resources whether or not a minor is initially suspected to have run away. Separately, Florida Statute § 937.021 bars agencies from imposing any waiting period before accepting a missing person report and requires entry into state and national databases within two hours of that report.

Specialized Teams Built for These Searches

The Pasco Sheriff's Office operates a federally certified Missing and Abducted Child Team, known as MATCH, certified through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's Missing Kids Readiness Program. The unit coordinates detectives, intelligence analysts, K-9 tracking dogs, and aerial drone teams for exactly these kinds of searches. The office is led by Sheriff Chris Nocco, who has held the post since 2011, and commands more than 1,200 sworn personnel and an annual budget exceeding $162 million from its New Port Richey headquarters.

Statewide coordination also plays a role once a local report is filed. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, established in 1983 as the nation's first state missing children clearinghouse, serves as the central liaison linking county sheriff's offices to broader state alerts and analytical support.

Part of a Broader Pattern in Pasco County

Wao's case is the latest in a string of missing-teen alerts across Pasco County this month. Just a day earlier, deputies were searching for a Wesley Chapel teen who vanished from Bluff Meadow Court, while a 13-year-old Wesley Chapel girl was found safe hours after a search earlier in the week, and a Holiday teen vanished from Essex Drive earlier in the month. A Wesley Chapel teen located after a weeklong search rounded out the recent run of cases.

The pattern extends beyond Pasco's borders too. In 2024, a multi-agency task force made up of the U.S. Marshals Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and sheriff's offices in Pasco, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties located or recovered 60 missing endangered children between the ages of 9 and 17 across the Tampa Bay area. Nationally, federal data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children show that 91 percent of missing children reported to the national clearinghouse in recent years were safely recovered, with endangered runaways making up more than 90 percent of overall juvenile cases.

Zephyrhills itself skews notably older than the rest of Florida, with an estimated population of 19,668 residents and a median age of 48.8 years, nearly 15 percent above the statewide median of 42.6 years, according to Census Reporter data. That demographic backdrop makes repeated juvenile missing-person alerts from the same small city stand out against an otherwise older resident base.

The Pasco Sheriff's Office asked anyone with information about Wao's whereabouts before he was found to call its non-emergency line at 727-847-8102, option 7, or submit tips online at pascosheriff.com/tips. The agency cautioned that its social media accounts are not monitored around the clock and urged the public to call 911 for active emergencies rather than relying on posts to reach deputies immediately.