A mother and her two teenage daughters have not been seen or heard from in Carlisle, Pennsylvania since September 9, and investigators are now asking the public directly for help finding them. Jeanette Price, 45, along with 15-year-old Samantha Evans and 16-year-old Jalisa Freshwater, were reported missing from the Cumberland County seat, and law enforcement says friends and family have had zero contact with any of the three since they vanished.
The Cumberland County District Attorney's Office confirmed the search for Price, Evans and Freshwater in a release, as reported by CBS News Pittsburgh. Investigators say there is no specific indication that any of the three have been harmed, but that various undisclosed circumstances have raised concern for their welfare. The office has not provided additional details explaining what prompted that concern.
A Month of Silence Before the Public Appeal
The formal public appeal did not go out until October 9, a full month after the trio was last known to be in contact with anyone, according to the Daily Voice. The notice was posted through the county's Crimewatch PA portal, which became the catalyst for the broader wave of regional and national coverage that followed. It remains unclear who initially reported the family missing, where they were last seen, or whether investigators believe the three left together, as CBS News Pittsburgh's report notes those details have not been made public.
Anyone with information or prior contact with Price, Evans or Freshwater is asked to call the Cumberland County dispatch center at 717-243-4121 or submit an anonymous tip online through Crimewatch, per FOX43 News. US Magazine's reporting echoes the district attorney's office's account that the total absence of contact from associates, rather than any physical evidence, is what pushed the case into urgent territory.
Legal Mandates Around Missing Teens
Because two of the three missing people are minors, Pennsylvania law leaves little room for delay on the front end of an investigation. Title 18, Section 2908 of the state's Crimes Code bars police from imposing any waiting period before investigating a missing minor and requires immediate entry into state and national missing person databases, a mandate Hoodline has covered before in Philadelphia. Separately, Pennsylvania State Police can issue a Missing Endangered Person Advisory, a system created under Act 2010-126 that allows officials to broadcast public and media alerts for at-risk missing people who don't meet the stricter criteria for an Amber Alert.
Cumberland County District Attorney Seán M. McCormack, who was sworn into a four-year term in December 2023, spent nearly 25 years before that leading the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit in neighboring Dauphin County, according to the Cumberland County, PA government website. That background in cases involving vulnerable minors shapes how his office has approached the search for Evans and Freshwater alongside their mother.
Carlisle's Location Widens the Search
Carlisle sits at a regional crossroads, with Interstate 81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike both running near the Cumberland County seat close to Harrisburg, per The Sentinel. That access point means investigators face a wide radius of possible travel routes if the family left the area by car. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission already coordinates with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to post alerts and flyers at travel plazas and on highway display systems statewide, giving searchers one more avenue for public tips along major commercial corridors.
The case also lands amid a backlog of unresolved disappearances statewide. Pennsylvania agencies had more than 520 active, open missing persons cases as of mid-2026, a count that criminal justice advocates say is likely an undercount due to inconsistent reporting, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The state also ranks among the top ten nationally for unresolved missing person entries, logging over 530 active records in national tracking databases in 2026, per World Population Review.
For now, investigators have not said whether they believe Price, Evans and Freshwater are traveling together by choice or under different circumstances. Anyone with information is urged to reach out to Cumberland County authorities through the dispatch line or the Crimewatch tip portal.
