A mixed martial artist is asking for the public’s help finding his teen daughter after Auburn, Alabama, police said her vehicle was discovered abandoned an hour south, in Montgomery.
No one has heard from Aniah Blanchard since the 19-year-old communicated with a friend just before midnight Wednesday, the Auburn Police Department said in a statement.
Before it was found in Montgomery on Friday, her car was last seen about 12:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. ET) Thursday near the intersection of Interstate 85 and South College Street, a main thoroughfare into downtown Auburn.
“At this point, there is no evidence of foul play; however, the investigation will continue until her whereabouts are determined,” the statement said.
Blanchard is a black woman with a light complexion. She stands 5-foot-6-inches tall, weighs about 125 pounds and was last seen wearing a black dress, tan duck boots and black stockings.
After receiving a tip, police located her black 2017 Honda CR-V on Friday evening at an apartment complex off the busy Atlanta Highway, in the eastern part of the Alabama capital.
The Honda showed damage to the front right fender and scrapes on the passenger-side door. Police said the vehicle had no damage when it was last seen Wednesday and asked anyone with information on Blanchard’s disappearance or on the damage to the SUV to contact them.
Blanchard is the daughter of fighter Walt Harris, 36, ranked No. 10 among Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweights.
In posts on Instagram and Twitter, Harris pleaded for the public’s help in finding his daughter. The married father of four lives in Homewood, outside Birmingham.
Blanchard attends Southern Union, a state community college with multiple campuses in East Alabama.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Aniah and her family during this time,” the school said on its Facebook page.
The college and the family separately warned the public about a fraudulent GoFundMe page collecting donations to assist in finding the young woman.
Missing Persons
Over 600,000 people go missing in the United States every year, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Many of the missing adults and children are found safe but others are never found or are found dead.
“It is estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year, with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year,” the center stated.
According to the FBI (pdf), the National Crime Information Center had over 85,000 active missing person cases across the country as of Dec. 31, 2018. But hundreds of thousands of cases were resolved that year.
Approximately 151,000 missing person records were entered but about the same number were removed.
“Reasons for these removals include: a law enforcement agency located the subject, the individual returned home, or the record had to be removed by the entering agency due to a determination that the record is invalid,” the center stated.
The first 72 hours in a missing person case is the most critical, according to criminology experts. It’s imperative to obtain information through leads before people start to forget about potentially crucial details, Dr. Bryanna Fox, former FBI agent and criminology professor at the University of South Florida, told ABC News.
NTD staff contributed to this report.
