A 15-year-old boy is missing after he was last seen walking alone in the 900 block of Misty Water Lane, a residential street in the Timberwood Park subdivision of North Bexar County, on Friday. William Myers was wearing a maroon t-shirt and black sweatpants when he was last spotted, and his current whereabouts remain unknown.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help locating Myers, who is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing 143 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Timberwood Park is an unincorporated neighborhood near Highway 281, according to Realtor.com, which places the search area in the far northern reaches of the county.
Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 210-335-6000 or send a tip to the Missing Persons Unit at [email protected]. The sheriff’s office has also warned that anyone found to be harboring a missing juvenile can face criminal charges — a warning grounded in Texas law, which makes it a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine, for an adult to knowingly shelter a minor without notifying parents or police within 24 hours, per FindLaw.
A Legal Distinction for Runaway Minors
Under Texas Family Code Section 51.03, running away from home is treated as a status offense rather than a crime for youth 16 and younger, designating the minor as a “child in need of supervision” instead of a criminal offender, according to the DFPS Texas Youth Helpline. That framework is designed to shield minors from prosecution while still giving authorities the power to reunite them with legal guardians once located. Separately, state law requires that once a missing child report is filed, agencies must enter the child’s information into the National Crime Information Center database within two hours, a mandate laid out in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 63.00905…