Family desperate for answers in search for missing teen, offering $30k reward
Jun 2, 2023, 6:58 PM | Updated: Jun 4, 2023, 3:37 pm
TOOELE, Utah – The family of a missing Tooele teen is now offering a $30K reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
“We’re doing this because I want it to be so tempting that if you know where she’s at, you’ll tell us where she’s at,” Breann Sagers, the aunt of Kandis Harris said.
Harris went missing on July 14, 2021 when she was 16 years old. She was last seen running away from the Odyssey House Teen Inpatient facility in Salt Lake City where she was receiving treatment for emotional distress and drug abuse.
“Kandis had a lot of trauma she was dealing with, a lot of emotions she was trying to get through,” Sagers said. “She lost her grandfather that adopted her, she lost her best friend, she had all these things she was trying to work through.”
Harris had a history of running away in the months leading up to her disappearance, according to Sagers, but during that time she continued to keep in contact with family. When she disappeared from Odyssey House she was active on social media for several days but then she went silent.
“I feel like maybe something happened to her and it was an overdose, it was an accident and they didn’t want it to happen and they all freaked out and maybe they did something to her,” Sagers said.
Sagers said Harris had a big heart and was always passionate about her family. She says the past two years have been an emotional rollercoaster trying to find her.
“We’ve all been through therapy trying to cope and learn how to heal, but it’s hard to heal when you don’t know how to heal, and you don’t have the answers you need,” she said.
Sagers hopes Kandis is still alive and continues to light a candle in honor of her missing niece who would have graduated this year, but at the same time she knows the reality of finding Kandis alive is unlikely.
“She needs to come home to her family and let us put her where she needs to be, wherever that is, whether it’s a treatment, whether it’s to rest, my family needs that closure, we can’t keep living like this,” she said.
$10k of the reward money is being provided by a private investigator and the remaining $20k is being provided by Harris’ family. Seagers said tips can remain anonymous, she just wants to know where her niece is so she can bring her home.
“Where she is at is not where she deserves to be.”
Tips about Kandis Harris’ whereabouts can be made to Private Investigator Jason Jensen at 801-759-2248 or to the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000.
