Phoenix police are asking the public for help finding a 38-year-old mother and her baby who vanished early Thursday morning near 7th Avenue and Pierson Street, south of Camelback Road. Luisa Walls was last seen around 5 a.m. that day, and investigators say she suffers from a medical condition that may cause her to appear confused and forgetful.
According to the Phoenix Police Department Missing Persons Unit, Walls left her home with her 4-month-old child and a diaper bag before getting into a lifted pickup truck, police say. The department, as reported by AZ Family, has asked the public for help locating the pair but has not released a description of either the truck or what Walls was wearing when she disappeared.
There is some confusion in the public record about the age of the missing child. The Phoenix Police Department Missing Persons Unit has described the baby as 4 months old, while the Arizona Department of Public Safety has stated in its own advisories that the child is 4 years old, a discrepancy first noted by 12News. Neither agency has publicly resolved which figure is accurate.
Description and How to Help
Police describe Walls as five feet tall and about 100 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call the Phoenix Police Department Missing Persons Unit at 602-534-3052, or 602-262-6151 after hours.
The 7th Avenue and Camelback Road corridor where Walls was last seen sits along a busy commercial and residential stretch bordering the Central City and Mountain View precincts, an area with heavy vehicle traffic, multiple bus routes, and dense residential blocks where witnesses might have spotted the pickup truck, according to the City of Phoenix.
Why No Amber Alert Was Issued
Some residents may wonder why an AMBER Alert wasn't triggered given that an infant is involved. Under Phoenix Police Department policy, AMBER Alerts in Arizona are strictly reserved for confirmed child abductions involving imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury, and cannot be issued for lost children, runaways, or custodial disputes. Without evidence confirming an abduction, that alert type does not apply here.
Arizona does have other tools built for cases like this one. In September 2025, the Arizona Department of Public Safety launched the Seek and Find Emergency, or SAFE, Alert program, which replaced the state's Silver Alert system under House Bill 2894 and now covers missing individuals of any age with cognitive or developmental disabilities. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 41-1728, agencies are barred from delaying or denying such an alert due to administrative processes or a person's prior missing episodes once the qualifying criteria around a cognitive condition or danger are met.
Arizona also rolled out a separate Turquoise Alert system in July 2025, coordinating public notifications specifically for missing and endangered individuals under age 65 whose disappearance is suspicious or life-threatening, with particular emphasis on Tribal communities, according to the Office of Governor Katie Hobbs.
No Waiting Period Required to Report
Phoenix Police Department guidelines make clear there is no mandatory waiting period before reporting someone missing, and any person with a legitimate welfare concern — not just family members — can file a report. The department does recommend first checking with family, friends, local hospitals, and jails, but stresses that immediate reporting is always permitted.
Department policy also requires that missing person reports be filed in the specific jurisdiction where the individual was last seen, which is why Phoenix police opened this investigation based on Walls' last known sighting near 7th Avenue and Pierson Street. If foul play is later suspected, that same jurisdiction retains primary responsibility for the criminal investigation.
The Phoenix Police Department's Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit handles thousands of such reports every year across the city, working to verify the welfare of missing adults, locate runaways, and rule out foul play. Statewide, the scale of the challenge is significant: data from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System showed nearly 1,100 open missing persons cases across Arizona as of March, according to FOX 10 Phoenix.
