Concern Grows for Autistic and Nonverbal Girl Missing in Massachusetts

Fears are growing for a little girl with autism who vanished on Sunday afternoon, sparking a huge police search for the missing child.

The 7-year-old, who is non-verbal, vanished from a neghborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts sometime between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET. It's thought she may have been on her bicycle, officers say.

The police are appealing for the public's help to find the little girl, identified by her first name, Anna, who is described as Black, around 4 feet 7 inches tall and weighing around 70 pounds. She was wearing black shorts and a white vest, with a purple hair tie when she went missing.

The girl was last seen around East Merrimack Street in the Belvidere neighborhood, according to authorities. The Lowell Police Department tweeted a picture of Anna along with her description. A follow-up tweet urged local residents "to search their properties (sheds, vehicles, boats, pools, etc.)"

Crews had ramped up their search as they tried to find the little girl before nightfall, and officials said search teams would continue working overnight. Sniffer dogs, drones, state police aircraft, and a dive team at the Merrimack River had all been deployed, according to Boston news station NBC 10. Officers also conducted door-to-door enquires and scoured CCTV footage from local surveillance cameras.

Newsweek reached out to Lowell Police Department for further information and comment.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there were 359,094 reports of missing children in the United States in 2022, although some of those numbers are repeat entries for children who ran away multiple times. While hundreds of thousands of children and juveniles are reported missing each year, an analysis by Reuters in 2019 found that the vast majority (more than 95 percent) are found relatively quickly after running away.

Abduction by a non-custodial parent or relative accounts for most of the remaining cases and just 0.1 percent are reported as being abducted by a stranger. In this case, authorities say they are hoping that Anna is simply lost or has "[fallen] asleep somewhere."

"Please try to help us bring her home this evening," Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference on Sunday evening at about 8:15 p.m. ET. "It is our hope and our great expectation that we are going to find Anna asleep somewhere or that she's gotten disoriented."

Local residents had earlier joined the search as the news spread of Anna's disappearance. One man who participated told NBC 10: "We're very concerned about the little girl...nobody wants this to happen to anyone."

Another resident, who was also not identified by the broadcaster, said: "What if that was our kid? That's how we feel, we just got to go out there and look for her like she's our baby."

A family friend, who was not named, told 7 News Boston: "We are asking everyone for prayers, this is heartbreaking, and we are just hoping. We've prayed to God and we've seen him do miracles so we're trusting this is going to end up well."

Officers have asked that anyone who might know of Anna's whereabouts or who sees her on their property to call 911 or 978-937-3200.