This Teen Ran Away From Home Back In February, And Nobody Has Seen Her Since: Where Is Ella Saylor?
On February 3, 15-year-old Ella Saylor ran away from her Muncie, Indiana, home and has remained missing without any leads ever since.
Ella, a freshman in high school, played the violin, liked learning Japanese, and especially loved the color teal. She was one of five siblings who were all adopted and adored reading. What makes Ella different from most teenagers, though, is her tumultuous upbringing.
As she grew up in Marion, Ella lived in a home that was eventually investigated by the Department of Child Services (DCS) on November 29, 2013, due to “concerns of deplorable living conditions.”
From the time Ella was 5-years-old, she cared for her newborn sister and lacked access to basic human necessities, like food. Her home didn’t have any running water or electricity. One neighbor even tried to lend a hand by throwing an extension cord over the fence.
However, the neighbor ultimately moved away, and Ella was left with no assistance again. Both she and her younger sister were subsequently removed from their home on January 1, 2014, and DCS decided they would be put up for adoption.
Ella’s adoptive parents, Elizabeth and Philip Saylor, then came into the picture. After encountering trouble having children, the couple opted to go a different route. For the past nine years, they have been foster parents to over 20 children.
“We knew there were children out there who needed families as much as we wanted to be parents,” Elizabeth recalled.
DCS specifically contacted the pair on March 14, 2016, and reportedly begged them to take in both Ella, who was 7, and her younger 6-month-old sister.
DCS wasn’t able to find them a home and wanted to keep the girls together. Elizabeth and Philip agreed to foster the sisters and later adopted them.
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“We were her eighteenth replacement. Because the system pushes reunification, the girls were returned after each failed foster family placement. They kept giving the biological mother another chance,” Elizabeth detailed.
Two years after Ella and her sister came into Elizabeth and Philip’s care, they adopted the girls in August 2018. Still, Ella struggled with her behavior at school.
In 2019, she began attending Northside Middle School in Muncie, reportedly began socializing with the wrong crowd, and started acting out. She was failing classes and disrespecting teachers, which led Elizabeth and Philip to enroll her in an online homeschooling program in February 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic followed, and in the fall of 2023, the couple told Ella that she could attend high school at Muncie Central if she continued working hard at homeschooling.
“That was the worst thing we could have done. We didn’t know it at the time since she had been homeschooled for over two years. Ella was both excited and anxious about going back,” Elizabeth recalled.
While in high school, Ella obtained a cell phone and began using Snapchat, which quickly became her favorite app since the messages would disappear.
Elizabeth and Philip had one phone for all of their children to share, yet no one child was allowed to have their own device. So, once Elizabeth discovered that Ella had a phone, she destroyed it.
Then, one month after Ella started attending Muncie Central, she ran away for the very first time in September 2023 at 14-years-old.
According to Elizabeth, she left behind a note that read, “There’s no turning away; I’ve got to go.” To Elizabeth, it sounded as if someone had made her daughter leave.
It was determined that Ella had changed out of her nightgown at one point during the evening and left through her front door sometime between 11:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m.
Following the discovery that Ella was gone, she was reported missing at 7:00 a.m. on September 20, and Elizabeth learned that her daughter actually had a Snapchat account.
Ella’s friend provided her screen name, and Elizabeth was able to guess her daughter’s password. This enabled authorities to learn that two adult Indianapolis men had been communicating with Ella at the same time.
She’d told one of the men where she lived, and he drove to pick her up. Thankfully, the police were able to figure out her location.
“Ella engaged in extremely high-risk behavior. Ella was recovered by law enforcement agencies in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was subsequently hospitalized at Riley Children’s Health before returning home with the Saylors,” reads a Delaware Circuit Court 2 fact-finding report.
She spent two weeks at the Simon Skjodt Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit. As for the two men, one was arrested, and the other was released because Ella reportedly told him she was 18-years-old.
Elizabeth and Philip were told to lock away sharp objects, chemicals, and medications, as well as increase supervision and watch out for warning signs upon Ella’s return home.
They remembered how angry Ella was, making accusations that they were neglectful and abusive, which caused DCS to get involved.
Ella was removed from her home on October 19, 2023, and moved to a foster home in another city until January 30.
After those three months, her new foster parents, who reportedly weren’t counseled on Ella’s past or phone habits, asked for the teen to be removed from their care.
“I am aware that there is no fear of Ella being a harm to herself, but I am very fearful of the harm to come to my home foster license, etc., with the continued lies from Ella,” read a letter to DCS, penned by Ella’s temporary foster mother on January 17, 2024.
Following a three-month-long fact-finding session by the DCS, Elizabeth and Philip were not found to be abusive or neglectful. Ella was returned to their home on January 30, her fifteenth birthday. Tragically, it didn’t last long.
The first night, the teen was angry. The following three days seemed to be looking up. Elizabeth and her daughter went shopping, and she planned to cook Ella Filipino food, a cuisine the teen had claimed to miss.
“The night before she ran away, we had a family member here. It seemed like a regular day. It was a Saturday; we stayed up late, ordered Applebees, and put the younger kids to bed,” the Saylors recalled.
“There were no clues that she was going to run away. She just seemed like her normal self. She gave us hugs, we told her we loved her and went to bed around 11:00 p.m.”
What her parents weren’t aware of was that Ella had a hidden phone, and on February 3, 2024, she ran away for a second time. This time, she wasn’t found.
Elizabeth and Philip woke up, realized Ella was gone, and discovered that their front door was “unsecured.” They reported her missing, and a statewide silver alert was issued the following day, February 4.
Nonetheless, the search for Ella has proved fruitless, coming up empty with any clues to Ella’s whereabouts.
“The investigation to this point has received very few actionable leads and tips that have made it challenging to trace Ella Saylor’s whereabouts, coupled with her prior knowledge of ways to not be traced. We ask that her information continually be shared and all information provided to our department,” explained Deputy Chief Melissa Criswell.
Elizabeth said that “obviously” someone had picked Ella up, and even though some possible sightings were reported, they all proved to be dead-ends.
The Indiana State Police has also stated that Ella is thought to be in extreme danger and may be in need of medical assistance.
“We want our daughter home, we want her safe, we want her to get the help she needs,” the Saylors said.
Her loved ones have created a Facebook page entitled “Ella Saylor Is Missing” to raise awareness about her case. As for Elizabeth, she claimed their whole family is “traumatized” and has begun seeing therapists.
She and Philip have opted to let go of their foster license and hope to pursue justice against DCS. They believe the agency wrongfully removed children, didn’t advise Ella’s temporary foster parents, and failed to conduct a proper investigation.
“DCS has done nothing to assist this family and has only brought pain and suffering. It is DCS intervention that has caused this child to be missing for so long and cause additional trauma to all the children in the Saylors’ home,” wrote Dorothy Ferguson, the Saylors’ attorney.
Ella is five foot four, weighs 230 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She has braces and was last seen wearing black pajama pants with puzzle pieces and a grey hoodie with “Washington, D.C.” written on the front.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Muncie Police Department at (765) 747-4838.
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