Russell Barnes is organizing another search effort Saturday for his teenager daughter who disappeared in northwest Baltimore 10 days ago, a police spokesman said.
The Clayton County man flew to Baltimore last week when he learned his daughter, 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, disappeared after she left her sister's apartment.
Phylicia Barnes, an honor student from Monroe, N.C., vanished on Dec. 28.
Her birthday is next week, Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told reporters during a Friday afternoon news conference that was broadcast online.
"Her family is very optimistic that she will be home for her birthday," Guglielmi said.
More than 100 detectives -- including half of the Baltimore police's homicide unit -- - as well as Maryland State Police and the FBI have been assigned to Phylicia Barnes' case. Authorities are using helicopters, cadaver dogs, "everything we've got" to find the missing teenager.
“We literally don’t have anything,” Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the AJC Friday morning.
The AJC learned about Barnes’ missing daughter after receiving an email from a friend and former co-worker of his. The AJC has attempted to contact Barnes, who on Wednesday helped police cadets pass out freshly printed fliers containing his daughter's picture and description. He's organizing another search effort on Saturday, Gugliemi said.
“I just want to pray to God that my beautiful daughter is all right and that she will be found,” he told the (Baltimore) Sun.
“This is about finding my child,” he told the Sun. “My child.”
Guglielmi said authorities are "at a fork" in the case, exploring that she was abducted and possibly taken out of state, or that "someone did something terrible to Phylicia here in Baltimore."
Phylicia was staying in her 27-year-old sister’s basement apartment. She planned to move to Baltimore and attend Towson University after graduating early from high school, the Sun said.
Guglielmi said she left her sister’s apartment on the afternoon of Dec. 28, apparently to get something to eat. Her debit card hasn’t been used, her cell phone has been turned off and her Facebook page has not been updated, the Sun said.
“It is not in her character to disappear,” Russell Barnes said in a statement printed on a missing person’s flier. “It’s not her character at all to not let anybody know her whereabouts. She’s not just a runaway or anything like that.”
The flier said Phylicia was last seen wearing a navy blue hooded pea coat, a turquoise thermal shirt, blue jeans and white slipper boots. She was carrying a caramel-colored purse.
Gugliemi told reporters Friday that Phylicia Barnes is very in touch with her friends. The fact that she hasn't called or texted anyone or updated her Facebook page is "a real driving factor to believe that foul play is involved."
Clear Channel Communications has donated billboard space along Interstate 95 between Baltimore and New York City, the Charlotte Observer said. The billboards will display the teenager's photo as well as a new nationwide 24-hour telephone tips number – 1-855-223-0033, the Observer said
More than 9,200 people have joined the Facebook page, "Pray for Phylicia Barnes."
The high-profile case has captured the attention of the Maryland and North Carolina media and now has spread to national outlets. Guglielmi said he's stepping up the effort to reach out to national media.
"We want Phylicia's picture on every television screen, on every milk carton from here to Los Angeles," he said.
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