ST. GEORGE — Police were gathered at Royal Oaks Park in the Dixie Downs area of St. George looking for a missing autistic teen Wednesday morning with alerts going out to local phones. The police presence got the attention of a passing motorist, who had in their passenger seat an autistic teen customer they were taking home but stopped to ask the officers what was going on.

That teen passenger was the missing person, ending an hour-and-a-half-long search that alerted local residents who were also informed on their cell phones that the teen was found safe.

“What happened was the citizen that cuts his hair, the kid showed up there to get a haircut,” St. George Police Lt. Joseph Hartman told St. George News. “Het recognized there might be an issue. He showed up here and said, ‘Hey, I this young kid came in for a haircut and I was giving him a ride home, but I saw the cops. I thought, well, maybe there’s something connected.’ And sure enough.”

According to an earlier statement issued by the St. George Police Department, the 17-year-old boy had the mental capacity of a 3-year-old and lived in the neighborhood near 1100 W. Snow Canyon Parkway in St. George, a short walk from Royal Oaks Park.

While police didn’t say specifically which barber shop or hair stylist the teen went to, there were at least eight haircutting businesses within four to 10 blocks of the teen’s neighborhood. 

Looking for a person who is autistic requires a different plan than officers usually use when looking for a missing teen or child. They might not respond when their name is called and might not be aware that anyone is looking for them.

“They may not do things to help themselves,” Hartman said. “And when we were told they’re nonverbal, that makes it worse because they’re not going to actually seek out. So we basically pull out all the stops.”

Hartman added missing children can be a tough call to handle for officers. 

“There’s very few calls worse than this because we’ve seen the outcomes that are horrible and we’ve seen the good outcomes, so we never want to see the horrible one,” Hartman said. “So we throw all the resources we can at to prevent that.”

Update July 19, 2 p.m. Additional details

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.