Family seeks help finding Sherman 15-year-old missing since Aug. 24

A relative of Ryleigh Cheshier has publicly asked people to report sightings of the 15-year-old, who the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says has not been seen since Aug. 24, 2026. The center lists Ryleigh Peyton Cheshier as a missing child from Sherman.

Anyone with information is directed on the NCMEC poster to the Sherman ISD Police Department at 903-891-6524, which the center names as the investigating or contact agency for the case.

The public appeal came in a Facebook post, in which the relative described Ryleigh as her niece, said the girl is missing in Sherman and asked anyone who sees her to report it.

Not every missing child brings the alerts that flash across highway signs. The Texas Department of Public Safety says the statewide AMBER Alert network is built for serious child abductions and requires investigators to verify an abduction and rule out other explanations, along with age criteria and enough detail to help locate the child, a suspect or a vehicle. DPS says a 2023 state law added a narrower path: a local chief law enforcement officer may request a local-area alert when a child is known to be missing but not every statewide criterion has been confirmed.

Cases like this one land in tallies that measure something narrower than the plain phrase "missing persons" suggests. DPS counted 115 juvenile and 18 adult missing-person entries during 2025 in Grayson County, which includes Sherman, and 19 juvenile and 6 adult entries in Cooke County. The agency says those are Texas Crime Information Center records entered into the national crime computer between January and December, counted by the date of entry, so they reflect reports filed rather than people still unaccounted for today. DPS recorded higher juvenile entry counts that year in Collin and Denton counties, and lower counts in Hunt and Fannin counties.

Statewide entries have been falling. DPS logged roughly 40,000 missing-person entries in 2025, down from about 45,000 the year before. The FBI reported about 88,000 active missing-person records nationally at the close of 2025, roughly a quarter of them juveniles under 18, and said agencies purged slightly more records during the year than they entered, because the person was located, returned home, or the entry was canceled as invalid.

Federal data also shows how agencies classify what they enter. When the optional circumstances field was used in 2025 entries, the FBI said nearly 95 percent of them were coded as runaway. A record stays in the national system until the person is found or the entering agency cancels it.

The NCMEC poster for Ryleigh Cheshier carries NCIC No. M409012720 and NCMEC case No. 2099315.

_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._