Detectives with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office are asking for the public's help finding David Boston, a 28-year-old man last seen walking on Courtney Trace Drive in Brandon at 4:10 a.m. Sunday. Boston has been classified as a missing and endangered adult, and investigators have released no further details about what he was wearing or where he may have been headed.
The alert was first shared Sunday afternoon by HCSO on social media, which noted that detectives are asking anyone with information on Boston's whereabouts to come forward. The agency's post cautioned that its account is not monitored around the clock, directing tipsters instead to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office directly at 813-247-8200. A flyer distributed by the sheriff's office, signed by Sheriff Chad Chronister, features Boston's photo under the heading “Missing & Endangered” and repeats the same request for information.
🚨Missing and Endangered Adult🚨
— HCSO (@HCSOSheriff) September 7, 2026
Detectives with #teamHCSO are asking for the public's help locating David Boston, 28.
On September 7, 2026, at 4:10 a.m., Boston was last seen walking on Courtney Trace Drive in Brandon.
If you have any information on his whereabouts, we ask… pic.twitter.com/lRKL3qEodD
Courtney Trace Drive runs through Brandon as the main residential corridor for The Griffin, a 455-unit apartment community spanning 23 acres just east of Interstate 75, according to Multi-Housing News. That detail helps explain the scale of the area deputies are focused on as they search for Boston, since the street serves a dense multi-family community rather than a scattering of single-family homes.
Why Deputies Are Calling Boston Endangered
Under Florida Statute § 937.0201, a missing adult age 26 or older can be classified as a missing endangered person when law enforcement suspects the individual is in danger, at risk, or potentially the victim of criminal activity, per the Florida Senate. HCSO has not said publicly which of those conditions applies to Boston's case, and it remains unknown whether the agency has activated Florida's Purple Alert system, a statewide emergency notification reserved for missing endangered adults with non-dementia cognitive, mental, intellectual, or developmental disabilities under Florida Statute § 937.0205.
Brandon itself is an unincorporated community of more than 114,000 residents with no municipal police department, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which is why county sheriff's detectives, rather than a local police force, are leading the search for Boston. The sheriff's office runs patrol District II out of Falkenburg Road in Tampa to cover the Brandon area and maintains specialized aviation, K-9, and behavioral resource units that can be deployed during urgent missing person operations.
How Florida Tracks Missing Adults Statewide
Florida law prohibits agencies from imposing any waiting period before accepting a missing person report, and state guidelines require monthly reviews of active cases in the FCIC database, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That framework is why detectives moved to publicize Boston's case the same day he was reported missing rather than delaying action.
As of early 2025, more than 3,200 individuals across Florida were registered as missing or endangered in the National Crime Information Center database, state law enforcement records show. Florida was the first state in the nation to build a centralized system for tracking these cases, launching the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse within FDLE back in 1983. During one recent fiscal reporting period, that clearinghouse opened 2,654 new cases and closed 2,558, reflecting a high statewide clearance rate even as new reports continue to arrive.
High-priority missing person searches in Hillsborough County often involve coordination beyond the sheriff's office alone, with HCSO routinely working alongside state agencies, federal partners including the U.S. Marshals Service, and regional non-profit networks. It is not yet known whether any of those additional resources have been brought into the search for Boston. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
