Red Deer RCMP are asking for the public's help locating Vada Baptiste, 15, who was last seen on August 6.
She is described as five feet five inches tall, approximately 114 pounds, with long brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information about where she is can contact Red Deer RCMP at 403-406-2200, or their local police.
To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477, online at P3Tips.com, or through the P3 Tips app.
Where to look
Red Deer is where she was last seen, but she has connections beyond the city.
In previous RCMP appeals, police noted she may travel to Wetaskiwin, and separately to the Edmonton and Hinton areas.
If you live in any of those communities, the photo is worth a second look. People do not usually stay where they were last seen.
If you see her
Call police rather than approaching her, and note the time and the exact location.
If you have already seen her since August 6, that information is still useful even if you think it's too old to matter. Investigators build timelines out of sightings that individually seem insignificant.
What actually helps
Share the RCMP bulletin rather than a screenshot of it. The bulletin carries the phone number and the current photo together, and screenshots get cropped, compressed and stripped of the contact information as they travel.
Post it where local people are. Red Deer, Wetaskiwin, Edmonton and Hinton community pages, neighbourhood groups and buy-and-sell groups reach people who never open a news site. That is usually where a sighting comes from.
Don't post theories about where she is or why. Speculation about a missing teenager travels faster than the appeal itself, buries the photo under argument, and can make it harder for her to come forward.
If you know her, a message saying you're looking for her and that she isn't in trouble costs nothing.
And when she's found, stop sharing. Old missing person posts keep circulating for years after someone is home, and they follow that person into job applications and school. Check whether an appeal is still active before you repost something you saw last week.
Sources
Alberta RCMP missing person bulletin, Vada Baptiste
Red Deer RCMP, 403-406-2200
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