The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is asking the public for help finding Robert Phillips, a teenager described as missing from Antioch since last September. He's described as having blonde hair and blue eyes, standing 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 140 pounds.
The case resurfaced this week when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation featured Phillips, listed as 17 years old, in a Facebook post as part of its recurring #MissingMonday series, which spotlights children listed as missing from across the state. The agency says Phillips has been missing since September 24, 2025. Anyone with information is asked to call the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND or the Metro Nashville Police Department at 615-862-8600.
How #MissingMonday Cases Get Chosen
According to the TBI, juveniles featured in the #MissingMonday series have in some cases previously been listed on the Missing Children of Tennessee website and are most often considered at-risk. The agency notes that in some cases, the children featured are believed to have left home on their own.
The Phillips case is one of dozens the TBI is currently working to resolve. In August 2024, the bureau had 39 children listed as missing on its website, according to WKRN. Those cases span a range of circumstances, including parental abductions, children considered at-risk, and kids who have run away from home, the station reports.
A Statewide Pattern of Missing Children
The scale of the problem extends well beyond any single case. An average of 500 to 600 children under the age of 18 go missing in Tennessee each month, per the same station's separate report. The volume underscores why the TBI continues to lean on public tips and recurring social media campaigns like #MissingMonday to keep attention on unresolved cases.
Not every missing-child case rises to the level of a statewide AMBER Alert — the station notes that Tennessee averages only about eight to nine AMBER Alerts per year, a small fraction of the hundreds of cases reported monthly. That gap is part of why the TBI relies on ongoing public awareness efforts for cases like Phillips' rather than emergency alerts alone.
Anyone with information about Robert Phillips' whereabouts is urged to contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation or the Metro Nashville Police Department using the numbers provided above.
