A 16-year-old boy with autism who went missing from a Keystone Heights neighborhood Friday afternoon has been found safe, according to the Clay County Sheriff's Office. The teen, identified as Kymari Davis-Shanks, was last seen around 3:30 p.m. in the 8100 block of Cactus Hill Drive, wearing a grey long-sleeve shirt and blue shorts, before deputies launched a search for him.
Davis-Shanks' disappearance triggered an immediate response from local law enforcement, according to News4JAX, which first reported the teen missing and later confirmed he had been located safe. The Clay County Sheriff's Office has access to specialized resources for exactly this kind of case — the agency participates in Project Lifesaver and can deploy K-9 tracking teams and aviation support when searching for missing endangered juveniles and vulnerable individuals, per a 2023 report.
Why Minutes Matter in Autism Elopement Cases
Cases like this one carry outsized urgency because of how common — and how dangerous — wandering behavior is among children on the autism spectrum. Roughly 49% of children with autism spectrum disorder attempt to wander or elope from safe environments after age 4, according to data from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and a study published in Pediatrics, cited by MissingKids.org.
The stakes are especially high in cases involving autistic children who wander. Studies tracked by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children show accidental drowning accounts for more than 70% of fatal outcomes among autistic children who wander.
Florida's New Spectrum Alert System
Florida has a Spectrum Alert system for missing children with autism spectrum disorder.
Unlike Florida's traditional AMBER Alerts, which require law enforcement confirmation of an abduction before a nationwide broadcast, Spectrum Alerts can be issued for missing autistic youth without any evidence of a kidnapping, FOX 35 Orlando reported. The distinction matters because elopement cases, unlike abductions, rarely involve a suspect — the danger instead comes from the environment itself, whether that's a roadway, a wooded area, or a nearby lake.
The alert system traces back to a sharp increase in accidental drownings among autistic children in 2024, which pushed national child safety organizations to lobby state legislatures for localized wireless emergency alerts capable of reaching nearby residents within minutes of a 911 call, according to MissingKids.org. Florida law also leaves no room for delay once a report comes in: under Florida Statute § 937.021, agencies are prohibited from imposing any mandatory waiting period before accepting a missing person report and must enter the details into state and national crime databases within two hours of receipt, according to the Florida Senate.
Should a missing person case in Florida stretch beyond 90 days without resolution, state law requires investigating agencies to attempt to collect biological DNA samples from family members or personal items for national database tracking, per Florida Statute § 937.021(6) as outlined by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That provision did not come into play in this case, given how quickly Davis-Shanks was found.
The outcome in Keystone Heights echoes a similar case in neighboring St. Johns County, where a Hastings man with autism was found safe after a search last month. Florida also has a Purple Alert system.
