Phylicia Barnes' Dad: 'Please Let My Daughter Go'

Phylicia Barnes' father made an impassioned plea to whoever is responsible for his 16-year-old daughter's disappearance.

"Please let my daughter go," a distressed Russell Barnes said in an interview with AOL News today. "We miss her and love her dearly."

The teenager from Monroe, N.C., was visiting relatives in Baltimore when she vanished without a trace nearly one month ago.

She was last seen around 2:30 p.m. Dec. 28, when she left the apartment of her 27-year-old half sister, Deena Barnes. According to relatives, Phylicia Barnes told her sister she was going shopping.

Investigators do not suspect Phylicia is a runaway. They do suspect foul play in the case but said they do not know if she is the victim of a homicide or an abduction.

Russell Barnes said he believes his daughter is still alive and suspects she is being held against her will.

"Someone has her and they just won't let her go," Barnes said. "That is what I feel ... I have not given up hope of finding Phylicia alive."

Phylicia is a straight-A student who was to graduate early from Union Academy in Monroe and planned to go to Towson University in Maryland, her father said. It would be out of character for her to take off without notifying someone, he added.

Barnes is divorced from his daughter's mother. A resident of Clayton County, Ga., he flew to Baltimore earlier this month to assist in the search for his daughter and has remained in the city ever since.

"The family's been out here doing whatever they can," Barnes said. "The family's got big billboards up, and we have done a lot of [the] work ourselves. The Baltimore Police Department [and] the FBI have helped us out, but the city pretty much hasn't done anything that we can see and we haven't heard from the mayor at all."

Over the weekend, police searched a vacant home and drained a nearby well, but nothing of interest was found.

"We are searching every day," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told AOL News.

Guglielmi said there are no specific leads directing them to the search areas and that most of the searches are based on tips or the result of interrogations of some of the people who saw her last.

"We are still plugging away," he said.

Authorities have not named a suspect or person of interest in the case, but, according to Barnes, investigators have been focusing on specific individuals.

"There are a couple people hindering the case," Barnes said. "Some people who have had lawyers for the last couple of weeks and the police don't understand why. It has gotten to the point where their families are complaining to the mayor's office that the police are pretty much harassing them. But they are people of interest."

Guglielmi has declined to name any potential suspects. He said seeking polygraph examinations is a possibility.

"We have explored that," he said. "Obviously, you need consent from counsel and all that and I don't think we have received that. At this point, it is definitely something on the table."

Phylicia's mother, Janice Sallis, was unavailable for comment today, and her stepfather, Raheem Mustafa, declined to go into detail about the case.

"Right now the only statement we have is [that] we are grateful to the Baltimore police for their ongoing search," Mustafa said.

Russell Barnes said he hopes whoever is responsible for his daughter's disappearance will do the right thing and help end their suffering.

"We are really hurting over this, so if you have her, we want her to come home safe and sound," Barnes said.

Authorities have set up a special tip line. Anyone with information on Phylicia's disappearance should call 855-223-0033. The FBI has posted her vital information and photo on its website, and a Facebook page has been created.