Search For Teen Returns To Flatwoods Park Friday

TAMPA, FL — Tampa Bay area residents are being asked to steer clear of Flatwoods Park again on Friday as the search for a missing 17-year-old girl continues.

The Tampa Police Department announced its intentions to return to the 5,400-acre park Friday in a Thursday email to media. Officers from that agency, deputies from the Hillsborough and Pasco county sheriff’s offices and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, spent the day on Thursday combing the park in hopes of finding Hailey Acierno.

Friday's search will begin at 8 a.m. with law enforcement officers again meeting at the Morris Bridge Road entrance.

“Hailey is known to spend time in Flatwoods Park,” the agency's email said. "Officers are using all avenues possible in the effort to find Hailey, including air service, canine, horses, off-road vehicles, bikes, a drone, and officers on foot searching the park from every vantage point.”

Police on Thursday also announced that Clear Channel Outdoor has joined the search effort by donating 12 rotating digital signs in high-profile locations across the county.

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Hailey was last seen on March 28. Tampa Police say she requires medication and is very much considered endangered. She was last seen in the New Tampa area and is known to also frequent Wiregrass.

“Another day, and no real leads,” Hailey’s mother, Lisa Acierno, posted on the Find Hailey Acierno Facebook page Monday, April 3. The page was created last week to rally the community to help in the search. While no solid leads have come in, the “amount of support is humbling,” Lisa said.

Anyone with information about Hailey’s whereabouts is asked to call the Tampa Police Department at 813-231-6130.

To find out more about ongoing search efforts, visit the Find Haley Acierno Facebook page.

Flatwoods Park is overseen by the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The park has entrances on Morris Bridge Road and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Photos courtesy of the Tampa Police Department