Clark County authorities are asking the public for help finding Lillian Stanley, a 14-year-old girl reported missing out of New Washington, Indiana. She was last seen around 10:30 p.m. Sunday in the 23000 block of State Road 62, believed to be on foot, and investigators have issued a countywide Missing Endangered Person alert as the search continues.
According to WHAS11, Stanley is described as a white female with brown hair and hazel eyes, last seen wearing a black shirt, pajama bottoms and gray shoes. Anyone who spots her is asked to call 812-246-6996. Local law enforcement has asked residents in and around New Washington to check their properties, garages, vehicles, sheds and security cameras for any sign of the teen, according to WDRB.
Why a Rural Highway Town Is Central to the Search
New Washington is an unincorporated community in rural northeastern Clark County, covering roughly 5.2 square miles with an estimated population of just a few hundred residents, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Residents have been asked to check security cameras and report any sightings of the teen.
State Road 62 isn't just a quiet local road — it's a regional connector running through the heart of New Washington, linking southwest to Jeffersonville and Louisville roughly 24 miles away, and northeast to Madison, Indiana, about 19 miles in the other direction. That stretch of highway running through town is the same corridor where Stanley was last seen.
How the Alert System Works
The Missing Endangered Person designation used in Stanley's case is distinct from an AMBER Alert. It relies on an emergency alert code adopted by the Federal Communications Commission specifically to push rapid Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert messages for vulnerable people whose cases don't meet AMBER Alert's abduction criteria. Locally, Clark County also runs its own notification system, known as Clark County Alerts, which lets county 911 dispatchers and the Emergency Management Agency send high-priority texts, emails and phone messages directly to residents who have registered for the service.
Missing Youth Cases Statewide and Nationally
Stanley's disappearance adds to a caseload that state and federal authorities have been working to address through specialized resources. The Indiana State Police maintained more than 1,100 active missing persons records on its state bulletin as of 2024, prompting the agency to stand up a dedicated cold case squad and hotline for unresolved cases, per WTHR.
Nationally, the FBI's National Crime Information Center logged 533,936 missing person entries in 2024, with active missing juveniles under 18 making up 25,493 of those cases, or 27 percent of the total at year's end, according to the bureau's data.
Despite the intensity of the search effort unfolding around New Washington, Indiana's overall rate of unresolved missing persons sits below 3.5 per 100,000 residents, placing it among the lower-tier states nationally alongside Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin, per the World Population Review. That statewide figure doesn't diminish the urgency on the ground, where Clark County officials continue to ask anyone with information on Stanley's whereabouts to come forward.
