Alisa Petrov is a 15 year old girl who left her home in South Jordan, Itah on April 21, 2025. She was dropped off to go to school in American Fork and has not returned home since.
Family members said she boarded a train toward Provo. Two men have recently been charged in relation to Alisa’s disappearance and she remains missing.
As some background into Alisa, her parents are Olga and Nikolai Petrov.
Olga has spoken about the events of April 21, 2025 which was a Monday. Olga said she dropped Alisa off at her school that day.
Online comments indicate that Alisa was enrolled at Canyon Grove Academy which is a hybrid school. Students attend the facility a few days a week and homeschool for the remainder of the time.
Canyon Grove is an inspired community of learners, parents, and educators who find fulfillment and joy in pursuing excellence in learning, self-accountability, and in meeting unique individual needs in order to prepare students for the life-long pursuit of knowledge to attain their full potential.
“She entered the building, she didn’t make it to the classroom,” Olga said. “The teachers said she never saw her that day.”
Alisa left the premises and went to a nearby gas station. She told two boys there that she planned to run away. The boys apparently tried to dissuade her from doing so.
“They told her, ‘No, don’t do it,’ but I guess she went for it anyway,” Olga said.
After she left the gas station, Alisa convinced someone to give her a ride to the UTA FrontRunner station at 6786 W. 7750 North. Alisa then got on the train and traveled to Provo.
The parents and police said Alisa approached multiple people about helping her in her journey.
“She asked a girl to get her a ticket in exchange of cash for the bus to Las Vegas,” Olga said.
Alisa did take her phone and iPad with her. In an interview with KSL TV on May 4, Alisa’s parents said that she had not been active on social media and had not responded to any of their messages.
“If she’s in Las Vegas, it might be really dangerous,” Nikolai said. “Someone can abuse her. It’s really bad.”
Her parents said they had spoken with Alisa in the months prior to her disappearance and had warned her about internet safety. They had spoken to her about talking online to strangers, including in places like Discord and Snapchat, and they instructed her to delete contacts she didn’t know.
They said they had checked her daughter’s phone in the days prior to her appearance, and there was nothing to suggest she was going to run away.
“(Our) whole life is upside down right now,” Olga said at the time. “We need her back. We miss her.”
The family created a website in an attempt to aid the search for their daughter.
Alisa, if you can see this, please know that we love you, we will always love you. We miss you, All of your friends and our friends are very worried too. We all want you to come back home. You will not get in trouble for running away. We are not mad at you. We absolutely love you regardless of what happened, and you are welcome home at any time.
We just want you to return back so that we are together as a happy family who care about each other, and we will try our hardest to make you happy. Please come back.
On May 10, the South Jordan Police Department said they had received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identifying a man in Texas who is believed to have communicated with Alisa before she left school on April 21. The man’s name was not released at that time.
The department said it would be “working closely” with the Texas City Police Department in their search for Alisa.
Police said that Alisa is “believed to be attempting to meet individuals she met online” using multiple social media platforms and chat applications.
“The Texas City Police Department remains committed to protecting our youth and ensuring that offenders are brought to justice,” the department said in the post. “We will continue to update the public as more investigations reach their conclusion…”
Alisa’s parents said at this time that they were worried she may have been lured by an adult and trafficked.
“That’s what we are suspecting at the moment,” Olga told KSL TV. “We have no confirmation, but concerns.”
On May 20, we learned that two men had been charged in relation to Alisa’s disappearance.
South Jordan police identified one of the men as Florida man Matthew Nicholas Menard (35). They say that he enticed her to go there, according to a search warrant, which requested full access to his phone.
Investigators found text conversations between him and Alisa on his phone.
“Matt and the victim also have extensive conversations where they plan on the juvenile running away from home to meet him in Las Vegas, NV,” the warrant states. “Matt tells the victim he will fly to Las Vegas for a business trip later in May, and she can lay low until he gets there. They then planned to fly to Los Angeles, CA together for several days, before ultimately going back to Miami, FL where Matt lives.”
The warrant states the two discussed “methods in which the victim can travel without being tracked and avoid detection.”
“They also discuss their future plans and how they can create a false scenario where Matt tells people she is his daughter,” it states.
Charging documents from Utah described in detail the sexual conversations that Alisa and Matthew had before she vanished.
In one of the conversations, Alisa told Matthew that she was 15 and that she was a minor. He acknowledged her age and kept chatting with her about sex.
Charing documents stated that Matthew asked Alisa to take inappropriate photos and send them to him.
Matthew was charged on Friday, May 16, 2025. He faces charges for aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, enticement of a minor, and criminal solicitation. Prosecutors requested a no-bail arrest warrant, but have yet to find either him or Alisa.
The second person identified as having had communication with Alisa is William Taylor Glines (37). He is from Texas City, Texas so it seems like he may be the person who the previous tip was about.
William has actually been arrested though. He has been charged with aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, attempted aggravated sexual exploitation, sexual exploitation of a minor, enticement of a minor and criminal solicitation.
It is believed that Alisa and Matthew started communicating around January 17, 2025.
Utah charging documents stated that William had conversations as far back as February 2025 with Alisa in which he acknowledged her age, expressed that he wished to engage in sexual activities, and demanded inappropriate images of her. In one conversation, said he was “double checking” that she was 14 or 15 years old.
According to an affidavit in the case, Alisa used a stranger’s phone at a bus stop in Utah to message William. She told William that “she was safe and that she was using a stranger’s phone to contact him and to not respond.”
Texas authorities were able to track the number that she messaged and were able to arrest William.
After the men were charged, Nikolai made another appeal to Alisa. “We really want her to come back home. We will not get her in trouble. We want to be a complete family again,” Nikolai said.
Nikolai also encouraged parents to be aware of what their children are doing and to keep track of who their kids are talking to online.
“There should probably be some understanding that it’s not a privacy issue but a safety issue instead because there are a lot of really weird people online who may take advantage of kids being curious and naive,” Nikolai said.
Alisa’s father said her family wants her to come back home and said they “don’t care what she was trying to do.”
“We love her a lot and that’s why we want her to come back,” he said.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front/missing-girl-utah-teen
https://www.abc4.com/news/missing-in-utah/15-yo-runaway
https://www.facebook.com/nuinu/ – Dad