Cobb County deputies are asking the public for help finding three teenagers who have gone missing in separate incidents over the past several weeks, with the earliest case dating back to October 1. The teens were reported as runaways, according to the sheriff's office, and deputies have not indicated that the cases are connected.
The disappearances span both Woodstock and Marietta and involve two 17-year-olds and a 13-year-old, according to Atlanta News First. Malaysia Jackson, 13, was last seen on October 1 in Woodstock wearing black joggers and a black short-sleeve t-shirt. She is described as 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighing 135 pounds, with black hair and black eyes.
David Canales, 17, was last seen October 9 in Marietta wearing a camouflage jacket, a brown shirt, gray sweatpants, black slides and white socks. He stands 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 175 pounds, and has brown eyes and black hair, per the same report. Angie Jimenez-Tovar, also 17, was last seen in Marietta on October 14 wearing a white and light pink top, black jeans and white shoes, and carrying a black backpack along with a black zip-up hoodie. She is 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 152 pounds, and has brown eyes with black and pink hair.
How Georgia Law Treats Runaway Reports
Even though the three cases are being handled as runaway situations, Georgia law leaves no room for agencies to sit on the paperwork. State statute explicitly bars law enforcement from imposing any waiting period before accepting a missing child or runaway report and entering it into the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. That means Jackson, Canales and Jimenez-Tovar should have been entered into the federal system without delay once each case was reported.
Georgia's juvenile code also shapes how these cases move forward once a missing teen is located. A runaway is legally defined as a minor who has been absent from home for at least 24 hours without parental consent and without just cause, a classification that places them in the civil Children in Need of Services category rather than branding them as juvenile delinquents, according to Georgia Criminal Lawyer. The designation is meant to steer court intervention toward family services and child welfare support instead of criminal punishment.
The Risks Behind a Runaway Label
Nationally, runaway cases make up the overwhelming majority of missing-child reports. Youth who ran away accounted for 92% of the 32,167 missing children cases supported by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025, with the organization reporting an overall case recovery rate of 90%, according to the center's own data. Even with that high recovery rate, the window a child spends missing carries real danger.
Research from the same organization indicates that roughly 1 in 7 runaway children are likely to become victims of child sex trafficking, with 74% of reported endangered runaways between the ages of 15 and 17 — an age range that covers both Canales and Jimenez-Tovar. Broader federal estimates cited by the National Child Identification Program suggest between 1.5 million and 2.6 million youth run away across the country each year, even though only about 360,000 children are formally reported missing to law enforcement annually, since many runaway situations get resolved locally without ever reaching a police database.
Investigative Tools And Protocols In Cobb County
State and local agencies have built out a network meant to keep missing-youth cases moving. The Georgia Missing Children Center, established by the state legislature in 1987 and operated by the GBI, serves as a centralized liaison between local police departments, families and national clearinghouses during these investigations. Cobb County Police Department has a missing-person policy.
The Cobb County Sheriff's Office has separately promoted child fingerprinting and identification kits that parents can keep at home, giving deputies immediate biometric details to work from if a child goes missing. Advocacy groups have also raised concerns, noted in a March report from the Cobb Courier, that nearly 1 in 3 missing children in the U.S. are Black and that runaway classifications can sometimes exclude minority youth from Amber Alerts, delaying how quickly the public learns a child is missing.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Malaysia Jackson, Angie Jimenez-Tovar or David Canales is asked to contact Investigator Taylor Smith by phone at (470) 609-8443 or by email at [email protected].
