Search for Missing Long Island Boy, 15, Focuses on East Side

For nearly two weeks, pedestrians in myriad downtown East Side Manhattan neighborhoods including Chinatown, Two Bridges, South Street Seaport and the Civic Center area have been jolted by the sight of flyers in search of information on a missing boy, 15, Thomas Medlin, of St. James, Long Island.

The flyers, printed and posted by the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD), are headlined in all capital letters and underlined in red. An explanatory text and two photos of Medlin follow.

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE NEEDED REGARDING MISSING TEEN INVESTIGATION

The SCPD Fourth Precinct cotinues to actively investigate the disappearance of 15-year-old Thomas Medlin.

Anyone who was in the Canal Street / Manhattan Bridge Brooklyn area on January 9, 2026 between 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. and has any video footage of Thomas Medlin is urged to contact the Fourth Precinct. This includes Tesla vehicle cameras, taxi or rideshare cameras, cell phone videos or any other footage from that time.

Please note that Thomas might be wearing different clothing than originally shown.

Thomas’s parents are offering a financial reward for any video that helps provide answers in this investigation.

If you can help, please contact: SCPD Fourth Precinct, 631-852, 800-222-8477.

At the bottom of the flyer are two color photos: one a portrait of the smiling Medlin with short dark hear, black framed glasses, wearing a World’s Most Dangerous Sharks t-shirt and a back pack.

The second, from what appears to be a train platform with yellow safety grip near the edge, shows Medlin wearing the same glasses, a black winter coat with red arm stipes and carrying a small travel bag.

Vanished January 9

The original SCPD annoucement, titled Incident: St. James Teen Missing, was issued on Monday January 12, two days after Medlin’s disappearance. It read:

Thomas Medlin, 15, of Saint James, left the Stony Brook School on Friday, January 9 at approximately 3:30 p.m. and ran to the Stony Brook Train station. He was last seen at Grand Central Station in Manhattan at approximately 5:30 p.m. the same day.

Thomas Medlin is white, 5 feet 4 inches tall, and 130 pounds. He was last seen wearing a black jacket with red stripes, dark sweatpants with white stripes, a black backpack and glasses.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Medlin is asked to contact Fourth Squad Detectives at 631-854-8452 or call 911.

“A Splash in the Water”

In the most recent SCPD update of January 28, police said cameras had cagut Medlin on pedestrian walkway on the Manhattan Bridge at 7:06 p.m., while his last cell phone activity was recorded at 7:09 p.m. No images could be found showing Medlin exiting the bridge, while “A nearby surveillance camera captured a splash in the water at 7:10 p.m.,” police said.

Family Distraught

When the story first broke, it wasn’t taken as a huge deal outside Medlin’s family and the SCPD. Indeed, the news of Medlin’s disappearance appears not to have been reported here until January 24, when the New York Post picked it up.

At that point, there was speculation that Medlin—who had no prior discipline problems and was close to his parents—had been lured to Manhattan via the online game platform, Roblox. Although Medlin was an avid player of Roblox games, his e-mail account was in the name of his mother, Eve Yan, who reviewed all the notifications her son received.

It was subequently learned, however, that her son had secretly created a secondary Roblox account that only he had access to.

Medlin’s mother, who is Asian-American, made television appearances on News 12 Long Island and television appearances on Fox News

Yan explained that Thomas had asked to stay after school that day and that his parents could pick him up 9 p.m. The Stony Brook School, in Stony Brook, is a private Christian college preparatory school with both residential and commuter students. That her son would stay late and socialize with his classmates was nothing unusual and something his parents encouraged.

When Yan’s husband went to pick up Thomas at 9 p.m., he wasn’t there. School security was immediately informed and inquiries made of the boy Thomas was supposed to be hanging out with that day. That classmate said he hadn’t seen Thomas except in school. Security searches of the school’s dorms, with continued until 2 a.m. Saturday, turned up nothing.

Meanwhile, Yan and a friend went out looking for Thomas themselves at 12:30 a.m. and when that was unsucessful, they went to the Suffolk County Police.

In the days following, it was learned that after Friday’s school dismissal, Medlin had rushed to the Stony Brook Station of the Long Island Rail Road on North Country Road, literally adjacent the school, Road and taken a train to Grand Central Station.

Yan further revealed that Thomas had told a friend he “met” someone on Roblox and wanted to them. Though his friend warned against this, “don’t go, it’s not safe, you have to watch out,” his warning, it wasn’t heeded.

Starting to break down but then composing herself, Yan went on to explain that, besides the unbearable pain of her missing son, it takes a long time for the the various social media platforms, including Roblox, to release information, even when a missing child, and police, are involved.

Roblox, which has faced prior criticism for its child safety policies, issued a statement saying “We share everyone’s hope for Thomas Medlin’s safe return and our thoughts are with him and his family. We conduced a thorough review to support law enforcement’s investigation and found no attempts to direct to an off-platform communication method or sharing of off-platform contact information.”

For their part the SCPD “has determined that these [online] platforms are not connected to his disappearance. There is no indication of criminal activity.”

A Mom’s Public Message

Her voice again trembling during her Fox interview, delivered a public message for her son: ”We just want him to know we love him deeply and he’s not in trouble at all. You know, whatever he did we understand. Please, we just want him to tell us he’s safe, because thinking about that each day, where he be, if he’s safe, it’s really put us— it’s f***ing hell, more than hell.”

”It’s a deep message, we love him so much, we want him to send us a message. Whoever this person he is staying with, have a kind heart and let us parents know, all the family and friends know, he’s safe, nobody is going to harm him.

”That’s the big message. When he’s ready to come home, let us know, we’ll come pick him up. He’s not in trouble at all. We love him more than anything in our life.”