New billboards aid in search for teen
After Evanegelys Colon was involved in a car accident in April, she was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital. But when her mother arrived to pick her up, the 16-year-old was nowhere to be found.
She hasn’t been seen since.
“It’s really stressful looking for her,” said her mother, Angelica Colon Padua of Houston. “I don’t know (anything) and nobody said anything and nobody knows anything about it.”
Padua hopes that leads in the case will be generated by a new billboard campaign launched Thursday by the Texas Center for the Missing and Clear Channel Outdoor Americas. Her daughter’s photo will be broadcast on eight billboards across the Houston area, with 1,200 appearances on each unit per day. Additionally, iHeartMedia will air announcements on local radio stations.
Little is known about what might have happened to Evanegelys, except that she was in a stolen car and with someone at the time of the accident. Her mom thinks she left the hospital under the influence of this person, whose gender and age are unknown, said Melissa Rangel, the teenager’s case manager at Texas Center for the Missing.
Billboards in San Antonio and El Paso will also project the photos of other missing children, as part of an annual campaign in conjunction with National Missing Children’s Day, which fell on May 25. Clear Channel, one of the largest outdoor advertising companies, is providing this campaign free of cost.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s missing persons clearinghouse, 52,355 people went missing in Texas in 2018. Of those, 40,428 missing persons were minors. More than 7,700 juveniles went missing in Harris County.
On Thursday morning, Evanegelys’ mother and representatives from the Texas Center for the Missing, CCOA and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office spoke at a press conference near a billboard in Humble. The billboard froze with a picture of Evanegelys as they urged the public to report any information they had on the teenager’s whereabouts.
Lee Vela, a spokesman for the CCOA’s Houston chapter, said the average person might not pay much attention to missing children.
“But if it affects you, it’s the most important thing in the world to you and your family,” he said.
Vela said the billboards will create millions of impressions this month that can result in leads for the sheriff ’s office.
“Every lead is important, whether it’s a small lead or a really big one,” he said.
In addition to the missing children’s campaign, the CCOA partners with the Texas Center for the Missing on a monthly basis to display photos of missing persons. It also collaborates with Texas EquuSearch as needed.
Beth Alberts, CEO of the Texas Center for the Missing, said public awareness is an important part of helping locate missing persons.
“Please, when you see this information, on social media or on the billboards, please pay attention,” she said.
Alberts said billboard campaigns can bring renewed attention to cases that might have fallen out of the public eye after the person has been missing for a few months.
“It can really bring new life to the search for that person and get it out there to where thousands and thousands more people see it, know that this person is missing and can provide information that can help locate the missing child,” she said.
Anyone with information on Evanegelys’ location can call the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office at 713-755-7427.