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Wilmington police still looking for missing teen

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Supplied photo. The Wilmington Police Department is still looking for any information on 15-year-old Deanna Smith, who was last seen on June 25 on New Bern Street in Wilmington.
Supplied photo. The Wilmington Police Department is still looking for any information on 15-year-old Deanna Smith, who was last seen on June 25 on New Bern Street in Wilmington.

Where did 15-year-old Wilmington resident Deanna Smith go? For more than one month, the Wilmington Police Department has been trying to answer that question after the teenager was last seen June 25.

Smith’s last known location was New Bern Street off of Market Street near Lullwater Drive. Smith left a note saying she was running away, which Wilmington Police Department Det. P. Oehl said is not a common thing for runaways to do.

“The thing about it is that no one has seen or heard anything from her since she left,” Oehl said. “She had no phone, no car or money that we know of so we just don’t know where she could be. Normally it doesn’t last a month when you put kids’ photos out and usually somebody calls with something.”

Oehl said Smith’s note leads him to believe she had planned to run away from home.

“If she did then somebody was there to help her and we just don’t know who that could be,” he said. “It could be that someone is lying to us and saying we haven’t seen her. It is like a puzzle and there is a missing piece, and I just don’t know what it is.”

Smith is described as 5 feet 1 inch tall, 140 pounds with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes.

In general Oehl said most of the people reported as missing return later that day or within one week, especially if they see their faces in newscasts, newspapers or flyers. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will soon deploy posters of Deanna around the state as well as in Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina, Oehl said.

When a juvenile is suspected to be missing, Oehl said the Wilmington Police Department creates a report as soon as notified.

“There is a stigma that we don’t want to take a report until after the child is gone for 24 hours and that is not true,” he said.

When filing a missing persons report for juveniles, Oehl said the most important thing is to have an updated photograph and to have knowledge of the child’s social life.

“Knowing who those people are before they run away is really helpful,” Oehl said. “When you get a parent who doesn’t know anything about their child or their friends, that doesn’t help us.”

Wrightsville Beach Police Chief Dan House said Wrightsville Beach does not often have many missing persons cases. Often they are younger teenagers but House said his department also receives calls from the parents of college-aged individuals.

“We have a lot of that with college kids and nine times out of 10 we go over to their apartment, question the roommate, and they can tell us the person spent the night at someone’s house and didn’t want their parents to know or a similar situation,” House said.

Both House and Oehl said they did not see any emerging trends in runaways other than the cause.

“Most of them have fights in the family or there is a life-changing event and they are not happy about it, like their parents divorcing,” Oehl said. “Either they don’t know how to or don’t want to deal with it. They don’t often leave notes but usually there is an event the parents can point to.”

To provide the Wilmington Police Department with any information on Smith’s whereabouts, phone the department at 910-343-3609.

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