Missing MHS student found

Daniel Biniecki, Staff Writer

After more than two weeks of searching, Riley County Police Department staff have located a missing Manhattan High student. 

Sophomore Yasmin Al-Shaibani was last seen at 3 p.m. on March 9 in the 400 block of Laramie Street. She was found on March 25 in Junction City. 

Her disappearance worried her family and friends though the police confirmed that she had run away and was in no apparent danger.

“I was shocked and surprised,” sophomore Hayley Fobes said before she was found, “I met Yasmin in middle school. I can’t really remember how we met but we talked a lot and I considered her a friend… I don’t know if she ran away or not, but it doesn’t sound like her.” 

Kansas Missing & Unsolved/Missouri Missing & Unsolved released a poster giving a description of Al-Shaibani on March 10, a day after she disappeared.

“Any time we have a call of a missing person we typically start investigating immediately,” Public Information Officer Aaron Wintermote said. “Obviously the faster we can find information about a Missing Persons the better chance we have of getting accurate information and locating them.”

According to Wintermote, officers were sent to Al-Shaibani’s last known location to investigate. It was then assigned to a detective.

“There are most likely other cases that the detective is working on,” Wintermote said. “Because of the size of our agency, we don’t really have the resources to just be able to put one case with one detective. We have a limited amount of staff, so the amount of cases don’t usually equal the amount of staff and so that means that detectives are working multiple cases at once.”

In cases such as Al-Shaibani and Missing Persons in general, the case is filed with the National Crime Information Center, which is an information hub run by the Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which is part of the FBI. This hub exists to update information on other missing individuals and can be accessed all around the country. This way it is easier to identify a missing person and get them home as quickly as possible.

Now that Al-Shaibani has been found in Geary County jurisdiction the Junction City Police Department takes over the next steps. The Junction City Police were unavailable for an interview but the investigation has not ended and Wintermote said that the detective that was previously assigned to Al-Shaibani’s case would do check-ins with the investigation’s progress.