A CLEAR Alert issued for 56-year-old Paula Wiley of Southwest Houston has been cancelled after she was located safe, according to a statement posted early Wednesday. Wiley had last been seen on foot Tuesday afternoon near the 12000 block of Lima Drive in the Alief neighborhood, prompting a regional alert covering the Houston area.
The TX Center 4 Missing announced the resolution on social media, writing simply that Wiley “was located safe” and that “the CLEAR Alert has been cancelled,” adding, “Thank you for sharing.” The alert had been issued on behalf of the Houston Police Department, whose Missing Persons Division can be reached at 832-394-1840. Wiley was last seen around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, wearing red pants, a striped multicolored top, and possibly tan open-toed shoes.
No further details have been released about how or where Wiley was found, and law enforcement did not disclose additional circumstances surrounding her safe recovery. That is typical practice; agencies and advocacy groups generally withhold personal details once a missing person case is resolved.
How the Alert System Is Meant to Work
Wiley's case moved through Texas's CLEAR Alert system, a statewide tool created in 2019 specifically to cover missing adults between the ages of 18 and 64, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Before the law passed, that age group fell into a gap between child AMBER Alerts and senior Silver Alerts, leaving no tailored statewide broadcast option for adults who vanish under suspicious circumstances.
CLEAR stands for Coordinated Law Enforcement Adult Rescue, and the name honors victims of violence whose cases helped drive the legislation, including Cayley Mandadi, D'Lisa Kelley, Erin Castro, and Ashanti Billie, per the state agency. To activate one, investigators must verify that a missing adult is in imminent danger of bodily injury or death, or that the disappearance was involuntary, and the request has to be made within 72 hours of the person going missing, according to the Texas Center for the Missing. That threshold is meant to keep the alerts reserved for genuinely high-risk cases so the public doesn't tune them out.
A Houston Nonprofit's Role in the Search
The Texas Center for the Missing, the nonprofit that distributed Wiley's alert and later announced it was cancelled, describes its mission as bringing hope and healing to missing people and their families. The organization was founded in Houston in March 2000 by businesswoman Doreen Wise after the four-month disappearance and death of her 17-year-old son, Gabriel Lester, according to the center's own account of its history. It now coordinates CLEAR, AMBER, Silver, and Endangered Missing Persons Alerts across a 14-county region surrounding Houston, serving as the regional link between local police departments and the public.
That caseload is substantial. The 14-county Houston-Galveston region logged 7,988 missing child cases in 2025 alone, representing 28% of all missing child reports filed statewide, per the Texas Center for the Missing. Statewide, Texas law enforcement agencies filed more than 40,000 missing-person reports in 2025, with adults over 18 accounting for over 12,000 of those cases, as Hoodline has reported.
What the Law Requires When Someone Goes Missing
Texas law does not allow police to make families wait before taking a report. Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 63.009, agencies must take missing person reports immediately, with no mandatory waiting period, and enter case details into state and national crime databases within two hours, according to Justia Law. That rule directly contradicts the persistent public misconception that police require a 24-hour wait before acting on a missing adult report.
Wiley's case is the latest in a string of regional CLEAR Alerts issued across Greater Houston in recent days. Hoodline previously covered a Pearland alert for a 25-year-old woman and a Grimes County alert for a 47-year-old woman missing from Iola, both distributed through the same regional network. The rapid cancellation of Wiley's alert, less than a day after it went out, reflects how the system is designed to function: broadcast widely when danger is verified, then stand down quickly once someone is confirmed safe.
