My Search for Alliy Bayliss

This is the story of my search for 15-year-old Alliy Bayliss from May 23 to May 25, 2011. She left her home city of Danville California at 8:10 AM Monday morning and sadly she will never be coming back. These are my thoughts and actions following the disappearance of a loved friend, classmate and community member. I share these in hopes that anyone who feels that there is no one out there willing to go to the ends of the world to save them, that there is that person somewhere out there, even if it’s someone you may not expect. Everyone in this world has someone who cares about him or her. Unfortunately for Alliy Bayliss, she did not realize this before it was too late. She had over 30,000 people from her hometown, coast to coast, and even across the world that cared for her, and prayed (and even continue to pray) for her safe return home.

Every now and then I get so emotional, so caught up in my own thoughts, but it helps me to get them out on to paper. And I hope that my words will somehow help you as well. I apologize for any mistakes or any facts that I may have forgotten. Also I want to use this time to thank everyone for all the many ways that they have helped over the last week.

As many of you know on Monday morning (May 23 2011) Alliy Bayliss of Danville California ran away from her home, leaving a suicide note behind. I was not Alliy’s best friend, I have not known her for my entire life, and I did not even know her favorite color before Monday. In fact I barely knew Alliy. I met her just over a year ago when she was dating one of my friends. She was loved by many of my close friends. And she touched many others of my peers’ lives. So when I heard about her disappearance at 4:07 on that Monday evening I became very concerned and immediately began to take action.

Jack Messerly, a friend of Alliy’s had invited me to a facebook group entitled “FIND ALLIY BAYLISS.” I was the first one to view the page and second only to Jack himself to be “Attending” the event. Before doing anything too drastic I messaged Jack to be sure he was completely serious about her disappearance.  After that, I began to click my computer’s mouse like there was no tomorrow.  I went about inviting people in a methodic manner, starting with people from Danville, stretching to local towns like San Ramon and within ten minutes I had invited over 500 people to help us locate her. At this point I was just hoping that someone that I knew had seen her or knew where she might be. Within an hour or two, the group had grown from the 80 Danville people that Jack had first invited to over six thousand and it was nowhere near stopping.

Around 5:30 I saw a post from Steffani Carol DeRita, and a few others who mentioned David Hand, another friend of Alliy’s. People kept asking about him, wondering if he knew anything because he had recently been in contact with her. People asked so much that when my neighbor Chris Fountain joined the facebook event he immediately contacted me about him. As it turns out David lives on just the other side of the neighborhood from Chris and myself. So after a 20 second conversation with Chris, I ran, barefoot, down to Chris’s house. We both jumped into his car without a word. We got to David’s house within a minute and quickly informed him of the situation. He was as surprised as all of us and when we asked him to, he attempted to call Alliy. The call was received by by Alliy’s sister (I believe it was her sister, it may have been her brother). Sadly, that was all we could do at David’s. He now knew what was going on and could help us in the search.

Soon after that my parents came home asking if I was able to get any homework done. I lied to them at first saying that I had got a little bit done, but in reality all I had done was written out the problems for my math homework. My mind was racing; I just wanted some way that I could help to find her and bring her home. My parents, at this point, did not understand the magnitude of the situation, so they began to slowly get angry. I had spent much of the weekend golfing, something that I enjoy but also takes a lot of time, and I was now a bit behind on my school work. They began to tell me that there are plenty of people looking already, and the police will find her just please take care of yourself and get your work done. Every time they told me this it motivated me more and more, I felt selfish trying to worry about my grades, when an entire life was at risk. So after over 45 minutes of fighting with my parents they finally agreed to allow me to join in the search effort at 7:30 in the Greenbrook Elementary neighborhood, where I heard that a team was being set up to find Alliy. Once again, I contacted my neighbor Chris Fountain (who was already planning on going) and at 7:25 we were there with about 50 individuals. We were being told that this was where the police were being stationed and the parking lot would need to be used so, basically we needed to move. One man announced to the confused group that we could all meet at the Greenbrook Clubhouse just down the road. I had picked up my mom’s Ipad before leaving the house so I typed up a quick note on the event page telling everyone that the venue had been moved by a few blocks so please meet there.

As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw Jack for the first time since 9:25 that morning and I asked him to update me on what he knew. He did, and in a few minutes, as we walked to the clubhouse, he logged onto his facebook on the Ipad but the group page had grown to over 10,000 people still awaiting response, so the page was slow to load. He then decided that he had to leave to return his bike back home and get on to the computer to “Fix some things” on the facebook group. He left me and I continued the three-block walk to the clubhouse with about ten of my and his friends (Chris was busy driving his car to the new location).

By the time everyone got there, the group of just a bit over 50 had become just a bit under 150 and it was all very chaotic. I had heard rumors of flyers on their way, so I asked around and found out what I could. I was near the center of the room and I had already heard a lot of complaints about what people should do and what she looked like. So I did what I do best, talk loudly. I began to tell people that flyers were twenty minutes away from being ready to hand out, and that I had her picture up on my Ipad if anyone could not wait. This was later followed by an explanation of what people could do, share the event and invite your friends because “someone that someone here knows must have seen Alliy at some point in the day.” and asking people to stop posting prayers to the “FIND ALLIY BAYLISS” Page because it was slowing down the internet connection and making it hard to find important posts such as higher quality images of Alliy. I was taking charge of the situation the best way that I knew how. And doing everything I could to expedite the search.

From there, I heard a rumor that she had gone to San Francisco, so Chris Fountain, Jenna Mulvey and I went to Walnut Creek Bart in hopes that someone had seen her there on her way to the city. As it turns out, we were not the only ones thinking this, and we were joined by many of my classmates including Tori Ostrom, Mora Gluskin, Kayla Eaton, Colin Cook, Hanna Beucke, both of the Marini sisters, and many others who had all just arrived. We passed out flyers and talked to people in passing train cars for around two hours. We had read false posts on the facebook page stating that she had been found but none of them panned out. We began to feel that our efforts At this point I read that Raveesh Hasani was doing everything he could (from his house because his parents would not let him out) by listening to the BART police scanners online, but still nothing panned out. As it neared 10 o’clock some of us began to realize that they needed to get home. So we left to head back to the clubhouse.

I was still on Jack’s facebook and I had been posting things on it to update people on what was fact and fiction, so at this point I logged in on a separate app to be myself and update people searching that I would be back at the clubhouse at ten to continue my search with anyone who was not ready to pack it in for the night. At about 10:05 we arrived back at the clubhouse to a clubhouse filled with about 30 individuals, Girl Scout cookies and plenty of water. This is where I saw Turner Stanton in a bright orange hunting vest. It was obvious that he had taken charge of the situation at the clubhouse in my absence. (Now at this point it may appear that kids and teens around my age were planning everything. I want to be very clear that it was not. There were police officers in the area and parents who spoke up and directed things on many occasions but for the majority of the first night’s civilian search, the high school students were, in fact, charge of the situation.)

After sitting at the clubhouse, restlessly looking for ways to help for around 10 minutes, Mora mentioned two places that had not yet been searched. We knew this only because there was a large whiteboard posted with all of the places that people had been, from schools to libraries, in town and many miles away. So we set off to two places where we thought she might be hiding, scared to return back home. Our first stop was Diablo Vista Middle School. It was dark and a bit scary. At this point our small search party consisted of Mora, Sam and Adrianna Marini, Jenna, Chris and myself. We only had the light provided by the camera flash on our phones, but we did what we could to search the area. Nothing. Next we went up to the Mustang soccer fields. It was even darker there but we walked the entire field in hopes that we would find something leading us to Alliy. Nothing.

Chris and I came back one last time to the clubhouse to do one final check in, only to find two of the local homeowners/Bayliss family friends, closing up the clubhouse for the night. There was nothing left to do that night. I felt hopeless and like we were out of options, so I went home.

The following two days and everything else is located

http://mysearch4alliybayliss.tumblr.com/

Please take the time to read it