Mardela Beatriz Sebastian Mateo was 16 years old when she was last seen on September 12, 2022, in Tarrant, Alabama, a small Jefferson County city just northeast of Birmingham. She is listed as a female missing person, and the known public account of her disappearance begins in the area of Springdale Road, where authorities say she left and did not return.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency later issued a missing-person alert stating that her direction of travel was unknown, leaving her family, investigators, and the public with only the painful starting point of the case: a teenage girl was last known to be in Tarrant, and after that, the trail became unclear.
Publicly available descriptions identify Mardela as Hispanic, with black hair and brown eyes. She was listed at about 5 feet tall and 120 pounds at the time she went missing. Those details, simple as they may seem, are important because in a missing-person case they become part of how a community remembers, recognizes, and searches for someone. The information shared through public missing-person listings does not describe what she was wearing, who she may have been with, or whether she had a specific destination in mind; instead, the case is marked by uncertainty, with authorities noting that her direction of travel was unknown.
The official alert connected the investigation to the Tarrant Police Department and gave the case number as 220901513. In the alert, the public was asked to contact the Tarrant Police Department with information about Mardela’s whereabouts, underscoring that even a small detail could matter. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s public missing-person search page also directs people who believe they have seen a missing person, or who have information, to contact the listed agency or the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Mardela’s case is also reflected in broader public records and missing-person listings for Alabama, where her name appears among other children and young people whose families and communities have waited for answers. BirminghamWatch included her in a 2023 list of missing children in Alabama, repeating the core details released by authorities: that she left the Springdale Road area in Tarrant on September 12, 2022, had not returned, and that her direction of travel was unknown. The limited wording of these notices conveys how little has been publicly released, but it also shows that the case continued to be visible after the initial alert.
No public source reviewed here provides a confirmed explanation for why Mardela left the Springdale Road area, where she may have gone afterward, or what happened after her last known contact. No public resolution information found in the cited sources states that she has been located alive or deceased, so the available record remains centered on her disappearance and the ongoing need for information. The exact circumstances remain vague in the public record: Mardela Beatriz Sebastian Mateo, a 16-year-old Hispanic female from Tarrant, Alabama, was last seen on September 12, 2022, after leaving the Springdale Road area; her direction of travel was unknown; she was described as 5 feet tall, 120 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes; and the Tarrant Police Department was named as the investigating agency seeking information that could help explain where she went and bring clarity to a case still defined by unanswered questions.Last Seen: Sep 12, 2022
