NY NY - Thomas Medlin, 15, Stony Brook, 9 Jan 2026

[investikater]

https://suffolkpd.org/Alerts/Press-Releases/ArtMID/10029/ArticleID/14352?/

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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.

Is that a backpack in his right hand and a phone in his left hand? Where is the large object?

 

[CityKid]

It sounds like he might have taken the 6 to the F from GCT. LE originally stated they were following leads around Cherry and Rutgers Streets then Jay and Sands Streets.

I don't know if those were determined from sightings or mobile geolocation. Cherry & Rutgers coincides with the F train's path, so if it was mobile geolocation, he might have just been on the train at that point. If they have visuals, perhaps he got out at the E. Broadway stop only to find that it's quite difficult to get up to the bridge's pedestrian walkway from there.

York St. seems the likeliest exit point, which is right by the stairs to the bridge's walkway. It's about a 10-13 minute walk to the center of the bridge. If Thomas's last known location was on the bridge at 19:06, then it must have been a location fairly well along the bridge if the substantial splash was recorded four minutes later. Oh, Thomas. Society failed you.

IMO what seems to be a fairly sheltered suburban child could find that part of lower Manhattan hard to navigate in the dark, even navigating by phone. It seems quite possible that he was geolocated on the F and continued on the F to Brooklyn for York. Possibly the mother mentioning High Street (closer to the Brooklyn Bridge than the Manhattan) in Brooklyn was something she misheard. IMO Thomas had made a plan and misdirected friends with his "friend from Roblox" story. (Not that I would discount children being groomed by adults on Roblox; I just don't believe at this point that this is what happened here.)