Hello everyone! As always, I'd like to thank you for all the comments and votes under my post about the Compton John Doe- I hope that he will be identified soon. Thank you to anyone who tried to get involved by checking out the photos and sharing their observations!
Today I wanted to cover a very recent disappearance case.
BACKGROUND
Kylie Arellano was 15 when she went missing from Garden City, Utah, USA.
Kylie didn't grow up in the area- her family moved there in the May of 2023.
She had a younger sister. She seemingly lived with just said sister and their mother, Stephanie Coleman, as her father isn't mentioned in any of the sources.
Kylie had a habit of making birthday cards for her mom and younger sister and always made sure that they felt how much she loved them on their respective special days.
She had a great love for all kinds of art, but painting was her absolute favorite.
Kylie loved cooking with her mom and learning how to prepare new dishes. Chrismas was her favorite, because she got to make home-made tamales.
Sadly, Kylie struggled with mental health issues at the time of her disappearance and she was in therapy. She was also a victim of an unspecified crime a year before.
She had ran away from home once in the past, but she returned a short time later.
Kylie used discord and snapchat specifically because she learned that her mom couldn't track phone number-based apps on the AT&T device.
Stephanie Coleman described her daughter as "always thinking of others. She (would) always put others before herself", "She (was) one of the most selfless people you’(d) ever meet".
DISAPPEARANCE
Before she went missing, Kylie has been getting money through PayPal from an unknown person. She has also been receiving unspecified gifts through mail.
On the 29th of May, the day she went missing, Kylie bought a a suitcase with skulls on it in a thrift store.
Kylie was last seen on the 29th of May in Garden City. Stephanie wasn't home when her daughter went missing. The last message Kylie sent to Stephanie was "I love you, Mama. Goodnight", to which Stephanie replied "I love you too, baby girl". That was around 9:44 PM- Kylie's phone was turned off at 9:52 PM, but Stephanie said that data was used on Kylie's phone at 10:37 PM.
Kylie's disappearance was properly noticed on the next day, when Stephanie returned home. Kylie's jacket was left in the driveway, unspecified "stuff" was packed, and Kylie's Xbox was gone. Kylie's sister only said "Kylie's gone" when Stephanie returned- it's unclear if she saw Kylie leaving or if Kylie told her anything (though it doesn't seem like it, or at least there are no details given to the public).
At first, it was believed that Kylie went missing voluntarily, as she did once before.
Stephanie called everyone she knew asking if Kylie was with them. When that didn't help with locating Kylie, Stephanie went to all the local buisnesses and neighbours for any footage from security cameras that might hint as to where Kylie went, but her daughter wasn't caught on any recordings.
Kylie has turned her phone off around 300 feet (91.4 m) away from home. Stephanie and the investigators have searched the area, but haven't found the phone or any other leads.
Since then, Kylie's phone has been turned off, and Kylie hasn't picked up calls from anyone. She hasn't used her social media and hasn't sent any messages.
Some sightings of Kylie have been reported, but they were all unfounded.
There was, however, one sighting that Stephanie believes was real. It happened on the 31st of May, right before noon in Perry, which is a bit over an hour south from Garden City, at a rest stop right off of I-15. A woman saw a girl in the handicap bathroom; The girl was wearing a black beanie and a black wig- two items of clothing that Kylie owned. The girl then took off the wig and the beanie and started to fix her make-up. Later on, the woman then saw the girl sitting on the rocks in front of the rest stop- the woman said that she had a feeling that something wasn't right. When the woman was starting to leave, she saw a Hispanic man approaching Kylie and then talking to her. She couldn't hear their conversation, but she assumed he offered her food or something like that, as she seemingly perked up. The woman assumed that the man was the girl's father; Worth noting that Kylie is half-Latina. Unfortunately, there were no cameras set up at the rest stop. Police said that a deputy who was no longer with the department had looked into the sighting, but not much has seemingly came of it.
None of Kylie's belongings have been found.
Police have talked with Kylie's social circle, but got no substantial leads.
CONCLUSION
Stephanie believes that her daughter might be a victim of trafficking and online crimes, given the online conversations Kylie had, and because she has been recieving gifts and money from unknown people. She believes that Kylie might be in Pocatello, Idaho, with a boy/man. She also believes that another local man, who's now in custody for different matters, might have additional info about her daughter's whereabouts.
Stephanie thinks that the local police hasn't done enough to find her daughter- they didn't go door to door asking if anyone saw Kylie, and they could be doing more to obtain warrants to search online accounts that may relate to her. She also wants them to search the local landfill. Police's response is that they did tell some of the neighbours and local buisnesses that Kylie is missing, and that they have searched through online accounts, incluing a discord account that belonged to Kylie, but didn't find any leads. To search through the accounts that they aren't sure have belonged to Kylie they need a warrant signed by a judge, and for that warrant they need a probable cause. They say that they haven't searched the landfill because no leads point to Kylie being there.
The investigators consider Kylie's disappearance a voluntary one, but have considered that the circumstances might've changed with time.
Kylie Arellano was 15 when she went missing and would be 16 now. She is half-White and half-Latina, 5’6” (168 cm) and 115 lbs (52 kg). She has black hair and brown eyes. She wears a lot of dark clothing. She has a cross tattoo on her right middle finger, Koda (name of her dog) on her right ankle, and other tattoos on her thighs. Both of her ears are pierced, and she sometimes wears a fake septum ring. She has self-harm scars on her thighs. She wears braces with black bands.
If you have any info on Kylie's whereabouts, contact the Rich County Sheriff's Office at 435-793-2285 (case number #25-R308).
SOURCES:
Kylie's websleuths.com thread
Bizarre to me that there wasn't any ability to track the PayPal transactions, I thought that usually required a bank account or credit card to open up.
It seems strange that they're not more actively pursuing avenues like this.
Surely Paypal would have to provide data like IP addresses etc. associated with the payments in a case like this? I would think there is probable cause to get a warrant.
Whole thing seems off.
I assume they’d need a warrant just as they would for more detailed social media info. Without being able to classify her disappearance as a crime, or link the payments to her disappearance, they’d have a very hard time getting a warrant for that kind of data.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about that. It's unfortunate and I really hate that. It would be great to have separate laws in place when it involves a minor. Even if she voluntarily ran away, an adult sending a young teenaged girl money and potentially helping them run away is just a gigantic red flag.
Agreed. I honestly don’t get why they wouldn’t be able to get a warrant here. Even if we assume Kylie voluntarily ran away — she didn’t come back, it’s months later and she was 15, now 16 years old if she’s still alive. If she’s still alive then an adult has to be with this girl who was again 15 years old and that is going to be some sort of crime in most circumstances, surely? Or else she has died, in which case it could be misadventure but it’s also very likely that she was kidnapped or harmed by someone while out on her own, and regardless of the cause, a child would have died and that should warrant investigation to find out why. Then when you add in the fact that these PayPal payments and gifts were happening, the scale tips further towards something criminal occurring here. But regardless, when a child runs away, even if we assume no one lured them, when it’s 100% voluntary — if they’re not found within a short period of time, safely in the custody of a trusted adult, than surely it no longer matters that it started out as a voluntary runaway? Because most voluntary runaways are found safely within a short while. So yeah I’m not understanding this either… why don’t we have legislation that allows for the full investigation of the whereabouts of a missing child? She was 15, she is missing, weeks and months have passed with no one seeing her, but they can’t justify a warrant to find out who was sending this child secret gifts and who she was chatting with that she didn’t want anyone to be able to find out about? Why? Is there a good reason for this that I don’t understand that someone could explain to me? I just, I don’t get why it matters if it started as a voluntary runaway when it’s a minor child. If they haven’t returned home or been found within say a month, then surely something has gone wrong, someone is harboring the child at best, or the child has died from exposure or an accident or they’ve been kidnapped or something? Right? Honestly really hoping someone can explain this for me.
There’s no evidence that the PayPal payments or gifts were related to her disappearance, so there might not be probable cause even if it had somehow been proven that she was kidnapped. Which she pretty clearly wasn’t, at least not from her house.
I mean, sure, we can infer that the suspicious things in her life are more likely to be tied to her disappearance, but that’s basically intuition, which doesn’t get you a warrant.
She's a minor, and you have to be 18 to get a PayPal account. Whose account was she using?
There’s no mention of her father anywhere that I’ve seen, but I wonder if he wasn’t quite so absent as he seems. Maybe he set up the account so he could send her money. Hell, maybe she even thought she was going to live with him when she left.
This is pure, unadulterated speculation, of course.
Does PayPal do anything to verify the information provided was accurate when you open an account? (I have a paypal but haven’t used it in years)
If they don’t bother to verify it would be easy to put in a fake birthdate
It’s possible an older friend/family member opened an account for her.
At least as of a few years ago they required you to submit a photo of a government ID
Yeah. I had to confirm mine with photo ID, then they had to deposit 2 cents in my bank account. The whole thing took several days.
Easy enough to get around, you can just have an older sibling or an older friend do it for you. Back in the day, my parents used to make accounts for me when I supposedly needed parentel consent, telling me to just "not do anything illegal."
I wouldn't be shocked at all if there are tons of ways kids have figured out how to get around these issues. Kids are always smarter than the adults that make these rules.
I think it depends on the country. Here in Spain I did not send any proof 🤔
Because there needs to be suspicion (probable cause)of a crime to get a warrant. Right now it looks like someone voluntarily left, which isn’t a crime.
But it’s a kid…
Yes I know. But that opens a slippery slope. Investigators investigating missing kid and asks for a warrant without probable cause and it’s granted because “it’s a kid” and let’s say that person was just someone he didn’t like (small town America exists) and he gets to legally tear the home apart because he was granted a warrant without any good reason for it. But if things can be abused, they will be abused. Look at the fraud in Minnesota for example. Humans are forever flawed.
Think about all the abuse exposed about the cia from MKULTRA to operation northwoods to operation paperclip. Tuskegee experiment. Many other atrocities exposed. Who’s been held accountable, ever? No one. And now we’re supposed to believe they’re not still experimenting and violating citizens rights everyday? Don’t give them another tool to do it legally.
Did the gifts not have a return address?
Her mother showed the deputy evidence of grooming, gifts, and blackmail from an adult man Kylie "met" online on an electronic device that she left behind. That should have justified a warrant.
They can also execute a warrant on her Discord chats, I'd imagine. LE really needs to step up their game here. :(
Without the weird PayPal payments, and assuming the truck stop sighting was Kylie, I’d say it sounds like she just decided to run away. Buying a suitcase and packing her things seems pretty voluntary, and the truck stop interaction could mean she was hitchhiking.
Given the PayPal thing and her purported reason for using Discord and Snapchat, she was probably lured by someone. I’d be really interested to know what her friends think, and where her mom got the idea about a guy in Idaho.
Lured by someone, or tired of helicopter mom. I'm not sure how many teenagers, especially rebellious ones, appreciate being tracked by their parents.
i think if my 15 year old had run away before, was self-harming, inexplicably had a bunch of tattoos at 15…i’m honestly not sure if i would do anything to “track” them or not but i really can’t blame her for choosing to
Yeah, I mean, as a parent your entire job is to keep your kids alive and well. Tracking a teen known for running away is just part of the job unfortunately. Her mother probably would have been thrilled not to have to do all that.
precisely!!
my mother did the same thing with me because i was an 18 year old drug addict and she was scared that i was going to run off to a different part of the state for a few days and die of an OD or something (it was a rational concern, trust me). i didn’t like it, don’t like it, but completely understand it
plus it seems Kylie had easily found ways to circumvent the tracking methods which is also what happened when my mom tried to do that so - no harm no foul i guess?
Is a mother who allows her 15-year-old to get a tattoo a “helicopter mom?”
Yeah, multiple tattoos actually. Mom also wasn’t home every night as it seems only the sisters were home the night Kylie disappeared. Kylie was allowed to go out shopping on her own at 15 which there’s of course no problem with that at all and I’m not saying that any of these things are bad, just stating that these things don’t paint the picture of a “helicopter mom” to me. The only inference that that was the case is that Kylie used Snapchat and Discord but again, would a helicopter mom allow their child to communicate with those apps? It doesn’t mean mom was in fact reading all or any of Kylie’s communications previously — it sounds more to me like Kylie simply wanted to make sure that no one could go back and figure out who she had been talking to, for any number of reasons. I just don’t see anything here that makes me think that this girl had to run away from her helicopter mom. Not sure where people are getting that other than the way that one sentence about Snapchat was phrased…. But in the context of the rest of the write up it doesn’t seem like her mom was actively tracking Kylie’s communications.
Her mom has to work at night to provide for her family. As for shopping, that made me literally laugh out loud. The only shopping in Garden City is the tourist gift shop in the middle of town at the corner of the only stoplight. The stoplight we only got a few years ago. She was not out shopping at any mall or even a target. She walked two blocks to get to the tourist gift shop and bought what was probably the only suitcase they had while her mom was at work. Her mom isn't a helicopter mom. I'm sure she would be more helicopter-y if she could go back in time.
Correction, it was the thrift shop right next to the gift shop.
I doubt she allowed it. They sound like stick and pokes
Correct.
It's entirely possible. We don't know their lives.
No, I’m asking you, since you used the term
And I answered. It's entirely possible.
I highly doubt she's a helicopter mom, considering she has several tattoos by the age of 15. My question is, if she did indeed run away, what was she planning on doing about the braces situation? Just keep them on forever? I wonder if she just never considered that because she's a naive teenager or whoever she went with said they'd take care of the appointments and payments (which would be a lie no doubt). I also wonder if she had been saving up the money she was being sent (why they considered her a run away). I strongly believe she was paid in exchange for illegal pictures. That shit is way too normalized so of course you have young girls participating 😒
This sounds a lot like she got groomed by an adult “boyfriend” who love bombed her with gifts and then she took off to live with him. This is a classic method pimps use. I think there’s a good chance she’s still alive.
Absolutely, most sex workers are recruited by their pimp and start out believing it is a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, but then the pimp will ask her to start sleeping with other men to "provide" for the couple. Once they are indoctrinated into "the life" the pimps other "girlfriends" come into the picture and before long the underage sex worker comes to view this as normal and accepted.
Sadly even if the girl is rescued or comes home at some point, the allure of "the life" is strong, and many will willingly choose to go back to it at some point. Psychological trauma is real, and pimps are experts at exploiting it for financial gain.
The initial gifts and money transfers are also deliberately used to create as sense of debt for the victim too. “I helped you move away from your bad home situation. I gave you so much money and I gave you all these gifts. Now it’s your turn to help me out!” He’s probably sitting back, playing on her Xbox she took with her too if he hasn’t sold it.
I am highly skeptical of the trafficking theories in most cases because the ways in which traffickers (aka pimps in most situations) operate and target victims is way more complex than the alarmist and misinformed mainstream narrative. But this case seems like a very likely trafficking situation. I am a former sex worker and unfortunately know multiple women who were trafficked as teens and are now completely and helplessly trapped in the cycle due to total dependence (and of course fear). The small amount of evidence we have on this victim is very familiar to me and has the signs of trafficking written all over it. By a certain point, after extremely skilled grooming tactics, they develop a sick loyalty to them and will choose them over their family and friends, genuinely believing it is best for them. The likelihood she will willingly return to her family by now is already very low and will only become lower over time, especially given her preexisting mental health issues.
I'm usually skeptical of trafficking theories, too, but I agree that it seems plausible in this case. The money and gifts just absolutely reek of grooming behavior. I am a survivor myself and used to work with trafficked youth, and unfortunately, it's so common for pimps to target girls with existing mental health issues. It's beyond infuriating but not at all surprising that the police are not treating this girl's disappearance with more urgency. I pray that she is returned safely to her family.
A Romeo
More needs to be done to educate young women as to the signs of a bad male.
Not just traffickers and thugs, but men who will never amount to anything and who will likely become abusers, will abandon them (usually after a couple kids), and will never be anything close to a pillar of their community.
Too many of these cases come down to an inexperienced young woman with a simmering beef at home who latches onto a lowlife male in the hope that he will somehow take her away from her home situation. Unfortunately, almost all of these girls end up in a far worse situation.
ftfy
I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but let's not forget that female predators exist, either. Even if they don't get nearly as much attention.
It sounds like grooming for trafficking. I can't believe the police aren't doing more.
Teenage runaways, especially ones that have ran away before like she did, aren't gonna be treated with that much urgency.
Statistically speaking, I believe 99% of teenage runaways eventually just come home. Who knows who she ran away with, but most of the time, these cases resolve themselves without any real effort from law enforcement.
It's the one percent we all find out about that should inspire them to work a case. The trail of PayPal and gifts from someone her mother doesn't even know the name of, should be setting off alarm bells.
I don't know how often you browse true crime stories but most of the time, the cops aren't gonna be inspired to do much of anything. And even if they do, then they're not gonna do a great job at it. Probably screw up the process somewhere down the line.
In an ideal world, yes, every single missing child case should have the full effort of the local law enforcement as well as federal law enforcement looking into it. But that's not realistic with how budgets work and how lazy cops are.
And to be frank, a teenage girl who runs away, with a history of running away, and even with the mysterious internet gifts, is not something that's gonna muster up alarm and effort compared to if a teenage girl got kidnapped by a stranger in a white van.
Yeah, people on here often forget that law enforcement agencies are in many cases undermanned and underfunded. In a perfect world they could thoroughly investigate every crime or missing person but this isn't a perfect world and sometimes choices have to be made regarding what gets investigative priority.
I can’t argue that. I have police and corrections officers in the family. It’s a mentality and physically grueling job. I couldn’t do it. The things they see and deal with, would scar my soul. That said, this case is almost textbook grooming. It’s not just a runaway case. It’s the kind of case that should be a priority.
It seems like it's similar to the Alicia Navarro case.
There was a teen I saw in the show Disappeared with a similar story. She was in school and got a "boyfriend" that was older than her. He used to give her a lot of expensive gifts. One day she disappeared and police knew she was a victim of trafficking when she was found (or rescued?) and taken to a hospital. Short time later, she went missing again. I can't remember her name but the guy was sent to prison. That case is terrifying. Maybe the same happened to her? 😭
Edit: I found her. Her name is Kristen Galvan.
https://disappearedblog.com/kristen-galvan/
https://charleyproject.org/case/kristen-marie-galvan
I remember reading about her case and just feeling so disgusted and angry at the piece of human garbage who trafficked her. It's so heartbreaking that her parents had found a residential treatment program that might have helped her heal in safety, but were unable to afford it—a pretty screwed-up world where a child is denied such critical services because of the inability to pay.
Making a new reply after doing more research. Garden City, UT is ~600 people total and many of the businesses seem to be RV parks. There is next to nothing there. I cannot imagine how hard it would be for a teen going through a tough time to end up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Utah. It sounds like she was in therapy but in order to see an in-person therapist it likely would've meant an hour drive into Logan?
The place itself seems focused around the lake, and has a fairly high price tag on some of the more vacation home places. It feels like there are many people who likely go to Bear Lake for vacations, but liking there in a town like that would be an acquired taste, even for an adult.
I cannot imagine my own kids would've been thrilled to move to a place like this. Her school would've been 22 minutes away (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/utah/districts/rich-district/rich-high-school-20236) and itself has a total of 167 kids in all the grades. Fitting in there would've been super hard. Perhaps she was homeschooled? It already sounds like she was struggling and she would've been in formative years during covid which likely didn't help. So it's no wonder most of her social interactions were likely online.
My heart goes out to her and I hope she's safe.
I feel like this will end up being similar to the Alicia Navarro case
It's sad that the disappearance of a child is not always an urgent situation regardless of the circumstances. It should first and foremost be looked at as criminal until there is proof otherwise.
Websleuths says there's speculation she's in Pocatello, Idaho (not sure why this is thought by a random person online?) but didn't Melodee Buzzard's mom also "take her" to Idaho as well? I can't find the post about this.
I imagine Kylie felt she was leaving of her own accord, but was more likely lured by someone. :( I hope she's found safe soon.
Making a new reply lol.
Yes. Wondering why they think she's in Pocatello.
She may have really run away and still be “okay” out there somewhere. This didn’t happen that long ago
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