A 16-year-old girl was reported missing from San Antonio's Northeast Side earlier in the week, and the Bexar County Sheriff's Office asked anyone with information to come forward. Ava Sophia Hernandez was last seen near the 7100 block of Glen Haven Drive, close to Walzem Road, standing 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighing 112 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair.
Most outlets, including WOAI, reported that Hernandez went missing on Tuesday, September 29. But KENS 5 reported her last-known date as Tuesday, September 27. The discrepancy between the two timelines has not been publicly clarified by the sheriff's office, and the exact day Hernandez was last seen remains unresolved across local reporting. KSAT places her last sighting near Walzem Road.
Hernandez Still Missing
Hernandez remained missing, and her whereabouts were unknown.
Anyone with information on Hernandez's whereabouts is asked to call the Bexar County Sheriff's Office at 210-335-6000 or email [email protected]. Deputies have not released additional details about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
A Department Stretched Thin By Volume
Hernandez's case lands amid a steady churn of juvenile missing person reports across the county. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar has said his department fields between three and 10 missing-person reports every day, with teenagers making up roughly 70 percent of those cases.
The pattern extends statewide. Texas agencies logged 40,309 missing person reports in 2025, with children under 18 accounting for 28,229 of them — more than 70 percent of all filings — according to data compiled by the Texas Center for the Missing.
New Unit, Old Backlog
To address that volume, Bexar County commissioners approved $370,000 in fiscal year 2026 budget funding in late 2025 to establish a dedicated Missing Persons Unit within the sheriff's office, replacing a setup where a single detective had been handling a backlog of nearly 600 open cases. Under Article 63.00905 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, law enforcement agencies must immediately begin investigating a missing child report and enter the child's information into state and national databases within two hours of the report being filed.
The sheriff's office also has specialized tactical assets it can deploy during searches, including a drone unit, search and rescue UTVs, mounted patrol, and bike patrol, according to the agency. It remains unclear whether any of those resources have been activated specifically for Hernandez's search. Hers is at least the fifth case involving a missing Bexar County teenager that Hoodline has covered in the past month, following reports on 14-year-old Azuri Roberts of Converse and 15-year-old Joeel Gaither in northwest Bexar County.
