Kylie Arellano, who disappeared from her hometown in Utah on Thursday, May last year, has now been found safe in Oregon after more than 500 days of the FBI and her parents hunting for her whereabouts.
At about 9:00 PM Mountain Time, the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office announced that local police in Oregon recovered the now 17-year-old Arellano, who was 15 when she disappeared.
A man, 39, who is said to have been with her all this while, has now been taken into custody without incident.
Missing #Utah teen Kylie Arellano found safe in Oregon after 500-day search dlvr.it/TW8XYc
— Utah News Tweets (@Utah_Newspapers) November 2, 2026
The bureau has not publicly released the identity of the 39-year-old man, nor has it charged him as the investigation remains ongoing.
“Tonight, local police in Oregon brought a minor who had been missing for a year and a half to safety, acting on information provided by our FBI Salt Lake City Field Office,” FBI Director Kash Patel said, in the announcement. “We are grateful she can return home, and we will continue working with our partners to hold those responsible accountable.
Days before the teen was found, investigators obtained and examined search warrants covering several aspects of her family circumstances. Accounts linked to Kylie’s mother, Stephanie Coleman, revealed a 2024 allegation that she had choked her daughter.
Discrepancies involved text messages Coleman exchanged with Kylie on the night she disappeared that investigators said they could not locate, and marks found inside the family home that investigators believed could be blood.
Coleman denied abusing her daughter, disputed investigators’ concerns about the messages and said the marks could have come from an injured cat.
The warrants did not establish that Coleman was involved in Kylie’s disappearance.
When Kylie went missing on May 29 last year, her parents reported her absent the next day, after which the Rich County Sheriff’s Office in charge of the case entered her information into the national database of missing persons.
Since early June last year, the Rich County Sheriff’s Office has been working the case with a federal joint terrorism task force, where it has pursued thousands of leads across the United States and in other countries, and issued pleadings for leads that would help with locating Kylie, then 15, and asked anyone with information to contact its tip line.
‘THANK YOU for all you and your agents and teams are doing to find our baby girl, Kylie Arellano and bring her home!!!’,” Kylie Arellano’s grandmother wrote on X. Thanking authorities for their efforts.
Oregon State Police, the FBI’s Portland field office and the Utah Department of Public Safety assisted in the recovery, the FBI said.
Patel was furious, adding a broader warning in his statement:
“To anyone using gore groups to target and exploit children: the FBI and our partners are coming for you. We are using every tool at our disposal to combat nihilistic violent extremism, bring offenders to justice and protect America’s children.”
Investigators have not said where in Oregon Kylie was found.
How Kylie came to be with the man is a question that has not been officially established.
