Newly reviewed footage placed Amy Hillyard in Dimond Park about 2 1/2 hours after she was first reported last seen near her home.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Search teams pushed deeper into Dimond Park and nearby hills this week after investigators said newly reviewed video showed missing Farley’s Coffee co-owner Amy Hillyard there about 4:30 p.m. March 25, hours after she was first reported last seen near her home.
The timeline shift matters because it gives police and volunteers a later confirmed point in Hillyard’s movements and narrows the stretch of East Oakland where she may have gone next. Hillyard, 52, is considered at risk because of an undisclosed medical condition. Oakland police have kept the case in missing-person status, not as a criminal case with announced charges or a named suspect. The immediate stakes remain finding where she went after the park sighting and whether anyone saw her after that point.
Police first said Hillyard was last seen about 2 p.m. March 25 in the 500 block of Radnor Road in Oakland’s Cleveland Heights neighborhood, near Lake Merritt. The next day, Oakland police publicly asked for help locating her and described her as 5-foot-4 and about 120 pounds, with blond hair and hazel eyes. In the first notice, officers said she had been wearing a tan-colored top and tan pants. As the search widened, friends and relatives said that description was wrong. By the weekend, loved ones were circulating a newer account that she had been wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, light blue jeans and white sneakers with a black stripe. On Sunday, March 29, a candlelight vigil drew a large crowd to the Lake Merritt pergola. Two days later, police said a newly reviewed video had placed Hillyard in Dimond Park at about 4:30 p.m. on March 25. Former colleague Nora Haron said simply, “We want her home.”
Officials and volunteers have filled in parts of the search map, but large parts of the afternoon remain unclear. Oakland police said Tuesday’s operation centered on Dimond Park because video made it the last confirmed place Hillyard was known to be. KTVU and ABC7 reported that about 60 people from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office joined the search, with mutual-aid teams from Contra Costa and Marin counties also assisting. NBC Bay Area and family friends said hundreds of volunteers have also canvassed neighborhoods, hiking routes and business corridors. Brian Molyneaux, a volunteer who said he did not know Hillyard personally, told local reporters he was looking for small clues such as shoes or clothing. Police have not said that any personal items were found. They also have not publicly explained how Hillyard traveled from Radnor Road to Dimond Park, whether she remained on foot the whole time, or whether investigators believe she entered a vehicle. A neighbor told KTVU that Hillyard may have left her phone at home, but police have not publicly confirmed that detail.
The disappearance has drawn unusual public attention because of Hillyard’s place in Oakland life. She and her husband, Chris Hillyard, co-own Farley’s Coffee, a longtime Bay Area business with one shop on Grand Avenue in Oakland and another on 18th Street in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood. The original San Francisco cafe opened in 1989, and the Hillyards opened the Oakland location in 2009 after moving to the area. Friends and business associates have also described Hillyard as a consultant, nonprofit volunteer and board president of the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir. That community role helps explain why missing-person flyers quickly appeared on Grand Avenue, at Farley’s East and across San Francisco, and why the case did not fade after the first police notice. At the March 29 vigil, friends said Hillyard was the sort of person who would have organized the search herself if someone else had vanished. Choir members sang “Homeward Bound” as neighbors, customers and relatives stood with candles at the water’s edge.
Procedurally, the case remains in a narrow lane. Oakland police have said Hillyard is an at-risk missing person because of medical conditions, but officers have not described that condition and have not announced evidence of foul play. No suspect has been identified. No abduction has been alleged publicly. No criminal charges or court hearings have been announced. On Sunday night, March 29, a California Highway Patrol endangered missing advisory went out to cellphones in the East Bay on behalf of Oakland police, broadening awareness beyond the immediate neighborhood. By March 31, searchers had moved from Cleveland Heights toward Dimond Park and the Oakland hills after the video review changed the last confirmed sighting. Investigators are still expected to keep working through the usual missing-person steps, including interviews, video review and follow-up ground searches, even though police have not publicly detailed whether phone, banking or transit records have added anything to the timeline. For Hillyard’s family, each new confirmed sighting could redraw the search area again.
The public side of the case has unfolded in two distinct scenes. One has been practical and methodical, with searchers walking brush, trails and road edges in Dimond Park and farther east along hillside routes. The other has been intensely personal. At Lake Merritt, friends described Hillyard as a connector who brought people together through her business and civic work. Family spokesman Tom Green said the vigil was meant to keep attention on the case and to show “how loved she is.” Serena Khaira, another friend, said Hillyard has fed “hundreds, if not thousands, of people” through the coffee shop and sits at the center of many relationships in Oakland. That affection has given the search a wider radius than a typical local missing-person case. Posters went up in Jack London Square, near Powell Street BART and on the windows of the cafe she co-owns. The growing number of tips, camera checks and volunteer teams has reflected not only fear about her disappearance but also the size of the community now looking for her.
As of Thursday, April 2, Hillyard remained missing, and the central gap in the case still stretched between Radnor Road at about 2 p.m. and Dimond Park at about 4:30 p.m. The next public milestone is likely to be another organized search, a new confirmed sighting or a police update that fills in some of the missing hours.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.