A 16-year-old girl from Johnson City has been missing for nearly two months, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is renewing its call for help finding her. Lesly Pop Lima has been listed as missing since August 23, according to case records, and she remains unaccounted for as of this week.
TBI Spotlights Lima in Weekly Missing-Persons Push
The TBI featured Lima in a #MissingMonday post this week, part of a recurring effort to draw public attention to open missing-children cases, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The agency's post describes her simply as a 16-year-old who is missing from Johnson City. Case information reviewed by missingandunsolved.com lists her as missing since August 23, 2026, and notes she was 16 years old at the time she was entered into the system, per missingandunsolved.com.
A flyer attributed to the Johnson City Police Department describes her as a Hispanic female standing 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, though that physical description comes from a lower-confidence source document. Anyone who has seen Lima or has information about her whereabouts is asked to contact the Johnson City Police Department at 423-434-6160 or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND, per the same flyer.
How TBI's Missing-Children Alerts Work
The TBI notes that children featured in its missing-persons listings, including #MissingMonday posts, can fall into a range of circumstances — from parental abductions to children considered at-risk to kids who left home on their own, as well as cases that meet criteria for AMBER, Endangered Child, or Silver alerts. The agency's own description of the program states that children featured in these weekly posts are most often considered at-risk and are believed, per the post, to have left home on their own.
Cases like Lima's are far from isolated in Tennessee. An average of 500 to 600 children under 18 go missing across the state every month, according to the TBI, as reported by WKRN. The station reports that social media and other technological advances have increased both the number of resolved missing-child cases and the speed at which children are found, and that the TBI works with local and state law enforcement, along with national organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to share information, offer investigative support, and issue alerts in serious cases.
The bureau has also rolled out a tool called the TN KidKit, meant to help parents document a child's photograph and identifying details before an emergency arises, the outlet notes. For now, Lima's case remains open, and investigators are counting on the same kind of public visibility that drives the TBI's weekly #MissingMonday campaign to bring her home.
