San Antonio police are asking for the public's help finding 15-year-old Erilyn Amarise Ibarra, who was last seen Tuesday near the corner of Tom Slick and Wurzbach Road. The San Antonio Police Department has classified her as an at-risk missing person because she has a diagnosed medical condition, adding urgency to a search centered on the South Texas Medical Center corridor.
Ibarra was last seen wearing a grey shirt and blue shorts, according to WOAI. She is described as about 5 feet 3 inches tall and roughly 100 pounds, with a light complexion, brown eyes, and brown hair dyed orange. The station's report notes she is right-handed. Anyone with information on her current location is asked to call the San Antonio Police Department's Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660.
A Search Rooted Near a Youth Mental Health Facility
The 8500 block of Tom Slick, close to where Ibarra was last seen, is home to Clarity Child Guidance Center, South Texas's only non-profit facility offering specialized inpatient psychiatric care for youth ages 3 to 17, according to Texas Public Radio. That proximity offers relevant context for the neighborhood, though the dossier does not establish any direct connection between the center and Ibarra's disappearance beyond the shared location.
SAPD's at-risk designation reflects the department's own missing person advisory practices, which assign that status to individuals with diagnosed medical conditions or other heightened vulnerabilities. Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 63.009, law enforcement agencies must accept missing juvenile reports immediately, with no mandatory waiting period, and begin investigating right away when a child is considered at high risk of harm, per guidance cited by law enforcement agencies.
Why No Amber Alert Has Been Issued
Statewide emergency alerts like Amber Alerts are legally restricted to cases with confirmed evidence of an involuntary abduction or an imminent physical threat, which is why San Antonio police are instead relying on department bulletins and public appeals to locate Ibarra, as Hoodline has reported previously. Missing person entries are still fed into statewide telecommunication networks that automatically alert police agencies within a 200-mile radius.
Statistics compiled by the Texas Center for the Missing indicate that voluntary runaways account for 80 to 85 percent of all missing child reports, while non-family abductions make up just 3 to 4 percent and stranger abductions represent less than 1 percent of cases. That breakdown shapes how investigators triage the flood of reports they receive: Texas Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Clearinghouse records show juveniles under 18 made up 28,229 of the state's 40,309 missing person reports filed in 2025, more than 70 percent of the total.
Legal Stakes for Anyone Sheltering a Missing Minor
Texas law treats a minor's decision to run away from home as a status offense under Texas Family Code Section 51.03, steering juveniles toward civil support systems rather than criminal detention. But adults who knowingly shelter a missing minor face separate exposure: harboring a runaway child is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000. Texas Penal Code Section 25.06 does offer an affirmative defense against that charge for anyone who notifies police or a parent within 24 hours of discovering the minor, according to Saputo Toufexis.
Bexar County's caseload underscores why local officials have invested new resources into missing persons response. County commissioners approved $370,000 in fiscal year 2026 budget funding to stand up a dedicated Missing Persons Unit within the sheriff's office, adding a full-time investigator and administrative clerk to a team that had previously fielded three to ten new reports every day. A separate report from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System ranked San Antonio among the top 10 U.S. cities for unresolved missing persons cases, with 157 open cases recorded as of January 2024.
Ibarra's case adds to a string of recent missing-teen searches across San Antonio, including those involving Amire Teele, Sophia Angelica, William Myers, and Avery Robles, each covered separately by Hoodline in recent weeks. Anyone with information about Ibarra's whereabouts is urged to contact SAPD's Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660.
