10
Loading video...
By Chris Matthews
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Newsweek has now mapped the key locations of a teenage girl who vanished from her Utah home and was found more than 500 days later at a house hundreds of miles away in Oregon.
Kylie Arellano, 17, disappeared from Garden City, Utah, on May 29, 2025, when she was 15. She was found on November 1 at a property in Huntington, Oregon, after an online conversation with another child gamer led the FBI to her location. Prosecutors allege she had been held against her will by a man who drove across state lines to collect her.
Adam Harmel, 39, has since been charged with transporting a minor across state lines with intent to engage in illegal activity involving a child. He appeared in federal court in Boise, Idaho, on November 4.
Read More on News
Newsweek has also compiled a timeline of the search, from the day Arellano went missing in May 2025 to her recovery in November 2026.
...
Court documents say Harmel met Arellano online in May 2025 before driving from Oregon to Utah to collect her.
Investigators allege Harmel threw Arellano's phone into a river in Logan Canyon before taking her to his home in Huntington, where he told her she was not allowed to leave.
Arellano's disappearance prompted a search involving the Rich County Sheriff's Office and FBI agents, who pursued leads across the U.S. and overseas.
Despite numerous reported sightings, investigators were unable to establish her whereabouts for more than a year.
Arellano's mother, Stephanie Coleman, continued appealing for information. She told NBC's Dateline that she had exchanged goodnight messages with her daughter on the evening she disappeared.
Coleman said Arellano's phone went offline shortly afterward, and the family discovered she was missing the following morning.
The breakthrough came when Arellano began communicating with another child through an online game.
Court documents say Arellano revealed her identity and said she was being held against her will at a man's home in Oregon.
The other child's parent helped arrange a video call, during which Arellano described her circumstances and provided information about the property.
The FBI received the tip on November 1 and listened in on the call.
Oregon State Police recovered Arellano from the house later that day. Harmel was subsequently arrested during a traffic stop in Ontario, Oregon, around 30 miles away.
Harmel has not been convicted of the allegations against him and is presumed innocent.
Timeline of Kylie Arellano's Disappearance
- May 29, 2025: Arellano, then 15, is last seen in Garden City, Utah. Prosecutors allege Harmel drives from Oregon to collect her in Perry, Utah, before taking her to his home in Huntington.
- May 30, 2025: Her family reports her missing to the Rich County Sheriff's Office.
- May 31, 2025: A possible sighting is reported at a rest stop in Perry, Utah. Her mother believes it was Kylie, but the sighting is not confirmed.
- August 20, 2025: The FBI's Salt Lake City field office receives information about her disappearance.
- December 2025: Coleman's account of her final messages with Kylie is among the details later featured in coverage of the search.
- May 2026: A year passes since Arellano disappeared, with her family still searching for answers.
- October 2026: The search passes 500 days. Coleman continues appealing for information about her daughter's whereabouts.
- October 29, 2026: KUTV reports on previously unsealed search warrants, revealing details of investigators' earlier inquiries into the disappearance.
- November 1, 2026: The FBI receives a tip after Arellano communicates with another child online. Investigators listen to a video call before Oregon police recover her from a house in Huntington. Harmel is arrested in Ontario, Oregon.
- November 2, 2026: Harmel is charged in a federal criminal complaint.
- November 4, 2026: Harmel makes his initial court appearance in Boise. The Justice Department releases further details about the investigation and alleged online exploitation.
How Investigators Found Her
The criminal complaint said Arellano told investigators that Harmel had prevented her from leaving his home and subjected her to repeated assaults.
Arellano said Harmel kept a knife under his pillow and forced her to remove her braces with pliers to make her harder to identify.
Court documents also describe how she communicated with another child through an online game.
The child learned Arellano's identity and that she was being held at a property in Oregon, eventually helping bring the information to federal investigators.
The FBI has also revealed that its investigation uncovered evidence of exploitation on gaming platforms commonly used by members of nihilistic violent extremist groups.
The Justice Department said members of these groups use online platforms to target vulnerable children and pressure them into producing disturbing material.
...
Following Arellano's recovery, FBI Director Kash Patel warned people using so-called "gore groups" to exploit children that federal investigators were pursuing them.
However, authorities have not publicly established whether Harmel belonged to one of these groups or whether a particular network was directly involved in Arellano's disappearance.
The investigation is being conducted by the FBI's Salt Lake City field office and its Joint Terrorism Task Force, with assistance from Oregon State Police.
Following her daughter's recovery, Coleman celebrated the news on a Facebook page dedicated to the search, writing: "My babygirl was found SAFE today!! We did it KOAS ARMY."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and James Debens
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines