79 replies to this topic

[Denise]

http://www.baltimore...0,5273108.story

On a mission to help trace missing kids
Police Department arms families with bracelets in pilot program

By Lisa Tom | Special to the Sun
July 20, 2007

Roger Miles called for his 10-year-old son, Harrison. He looked in every room of his Clarksville home, but could not find him.

"We started frantically searching our neighborhood," said Miles, recalling the October 2004 incident. "I felt panicked. ... It was a very chaotic situation. We were totally blindsided. We didn't know what to do." Howard County police searched for Harrison, who has autism, finding him 45 minutes later.

Harrison now benefits from Project Lifesaver, which outfits a person who is prone to wandering with a bracelet that emits an assigned radio frequency. The bracelet, which can be worn on the wrist or ankle, allows law enforcement officers to find a missing person quickly and easily.

"You're using one to two people for 30 minutes instead of your search escalating to hundreds of people and days," said Gene Saunders, chief executive officer of Project Lifesaver International.

The Howard County Police Department has started a Project Lifesaver pilot program for up to 20 families identified by the Howard County Autism Society. The first five families received bracelets last month.

Spaces are available in the pilot program, which provides the equipment free from the county Police Department, as well as three months of free battery changes. In the future, participants will pay $250 for the equipment and about $10 a month for a battery change, although the Police Department or the Autism Society will offer financial aid.

"It's just a very frightening thing to think that your child or loved one could get away from you," said Elkridge resident Cheri Truett, whose son, Malcolm, 5, wears a bracelet on his wrist.

The special needs of those with a tendency to wander often present additional challenges in a search and rescue.

"For typical kids, it's a scare, too," Truett said. "For us, the scare is heightened because if someone asked [Malcolm] who he is or where he's from, he might not answer in a way they can understand."

Said Miles: "The fact that Harrison can't respond makes those fears 10 times worse. He can't walk up to someone and say ... 'I'm lost.' "

After the 2004 incident, Miles began researching a "solution to [his] situation" and contacted Howard Police Chief William J. McMahon about bringing Project Lifesaver to Howard County.

"We give credit to Chief McMahon for staying behind the program for two years and making sure this program didn't get lost," said police Sgt. Page Christis, who serves as the department's liaison to the Howard County Autism Society.

McMahon and Miles encountered legal issues, such as the Police Department's responsibility if a person using Project Lifesaver were not found. They worked with the Autism Society to develop a pilot program, including the application process.

"This will be an invaluable tool for the Police Department in locating special-needs children," McMahon said in a statement.

Miles said that "the need to provide safety for my child" kept him motivated during the planning and approval process.

"I looked into individual-use [tracking] systems in the retail base, but I still focused on getting Project Lifesaver because none of [the retail devices] provide the same level of safety or security as the Police Department," Miles said.

Project Lifesaver instructors trained 12 police officers and two members of the Department of Fire and Rescue Services to use the transmitting and receiving equipment. Officers also learned ways to gain the trust of people who have been found but may be anxious, disoriented or frightened.

"We hope to expand this to other groups, such as people with Alzheimer's or dementia," Christis said.

Saunders, who founded the nonprofit Project Lifesaver International, worked for 23 years as commander of special operations and search and rescue in the Chesapeake, Va.

"For about two years, I was doing it in my off-duty hours - changing batteries, meeting with [families]," said Saunders. "It got to the point where I was either going to retire and do this full time or leave it, and I wasn't about to leave it."

Because Project Lifesaver is used in 600 agencies in 41 states and Canada, Howard County residents can use the same bracelets when traveling.

Any community with Project Lifesaver can track any bracelet and engage in a search and rescue.

"Project Lifesaver is not a 100 percent guarantee nor is it the only safeguard that a family should have in place, but it is one more layer of protection," said Kim Manning, executive director of the Howard County Autism Society.

[Denise]

http://www.wave3.com...819951&nav=0RZF

Local company placing posters of missing kids on vehicles

July 21, 2007 09:35 AM CDT

Mother hopes mobile posters help solve daughter's disappearance

By Maira Ansari

LOUISVILLE (WAVE) -- A nationwide effort to help find missing children is hitting the roads of Louisville hoping to catch your eye. It's called "Project Home Again," and the people behind the effort hope to bring missing children back home. WAVE 3's Maira Ansari reports.

The idea is simple: get pictures and profiles of missing children moving all around town. One Louisville mother whose daughter vanished years ago hopes this effort will help find her daughter.

"I went downstairs to tell her to come on up and go to bed and she was gone," said Becky Haueter. Her daughter, Amy was last seen Louisville in 2005. She was considered a chronic runaway.

That's why Becky says "when she left this time, even I thought it's going to be a few days."

But now, nearly three years later, there is still no sign of Amy. Her profile is even on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

But these days, that's not the only place where you'll see pictures of Amy.

"Trucks are constantly on the move," said HMC service technician Eric Conley.

Pictures of Amy and other local missing children can also be seen on magnetic posters on the back of commercial heating and air-conditioning service trucks.

"You do have people come up and ask what the program is about," Conley said. "I've even had them ask me if it's my child."

Since it started in 1998, Project Home Again, more than 6,000 posters of 250 different children have been placed on service vehicles across the country.

"The 200 contractors that are participating, from California to Florida through Connecticut have posters on their vehicles that are allowing us to help locate these missing children," said HMC Service Vice President Wayne Turchetta.

"It's basically a moving billboard," Turchetta said.

So far, 138 of the children features on the moving posters have been found. Three have been in the Louisville area.

Turchetta says the posters are definitely worth it. "Ten dollars a poster -- I mean, that's a lunch."

Becky says as hard as it is to see her daughter's picture on a missing person's poster, she's glad her picture is moving around town, so someone can hopefully give her answers to her daughter's disappearance.

"There are so many caring people out there," Becky said. "They don't know me. Or my daughter, but they care enough to try to help find her.

If you know any details about Amy's disappearance or the disappearance of any other child, please call 574-LMPD or 1-800-THE-LOST.

This story has also received national attention. NBC Nightly News was in Louisville recently, and plans to feature a story on Project Home Again on July 27th.

[Kelly]

NEW GLOBAL INTERNET CHANNEL LAUNCHED TO FIND MISSING CHILDRENÂÂ

The International Centre For Missing & Exploited Children Partners With YouTube And The Find Madeline Campaign  ÂÂ

Alexandria, VA – August 10, 2007 – The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), in partnership with Google’s YouTube, and The Find Madeleine Campaign today announced the creation of a new initiative that will provide worldwide exposure to information and videos of missing children. A new YouTube Missing Children’s Channel has been created exclusively for posting videos of missing children. The new channel can be found at www.youtube.com/DontYouForgetAboutMe and will be operational today.

Case information and videos of missing children will first be submitted to ICMEC for review and verification before posting on the new channel. ICMEC will work with analysts at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), local and national law enforcement on U.S. cases, and with Interpol on international cases to confirm it is an open case and verify the details of the case and video. After the case information has been certified, it will be forwarded to YouTube for posting. Anyone with information about a missing child featured on the website will be directed to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency.

“Every year hundreds of thousands of children go missing around the world and some are abducted to other countries, creating unique challenges for law enforcement and family members searching for them,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of ICMEC. “In the U.S. alone, nearly 800,000 children are missing each year or about 2,000 each day. Photos remain the single most effective tool for finding a missing child. This new resource will provide unprecedented exposure for missing children, reaching potentially millions of viewers every day and increasing the opportunity that someone has seen them.” ÂÂ

The timing of the announcement coincides with the 100th day since Madeleine McCann went missing. Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007 while on a family vacation in Portugal. This past June, Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, sought ICMEC’s assistance to create an international resource that would quickly disseminate pictures of missing children throughout the world. Gerry McCann recently visited the headquarters of NCMEC and ICMEC in Virginia where he and Allen discussed the need for disseminating information and images of missing children on a broader, global basis.

“Kate and I are really enthusiastic about this powerful new resource,” said Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s father. “We believe it will help in the search for Madeleine and many other children. We are grateful to ICMEC for its leadership on behalf of our child and so many others.”

YouTube, which is owned by Google, is a popular video sharing website and leader in online video. Its popularity and global reach made YouTube a natural choice as a partner in this project. The channel’s headline banner, “Don’t You Forget About Me,” is named after the hit song by the Scottish rock group “Simple Minds.”

In addition to information and videos of missing children, the channel will include child safety and educational materials in several languages as well as Public Service Announcements and messages from dignitaries, celebrities and others including First Lady Laura Bush and soccer star David Beckham.

There will be no cost to post a video of a missing child on the new channel. Instructions and criteria for submitting a video can be found on the channel site or www.icmec.org. No incomplete or anonymous submissions will be accepted.  ÂÂ

The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children is a private, nonprofit 501© (3) nongovernmental organization. It is the leading agency working on a global basis to combat child abduction and exploitation. It is the sister organization of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

ICMEC Contact:
703-837-6111

[Denise]

http://www.zwire.com...3&PAG=461&rfi=9

More than 2,000 reports of missing children filed daily

By Sgt. Bob Berry, Crime Prevention columnist11/05/2007

There has been a lot in the news lately about missing children, children being abducted and the subsequent manhunts for both the victim and the suspect. It seems as though we hear a story in the national or local news just about every day.
 
Fact is, across the nation there are more than 2,000 reports of missing children filed with law enforcement agencies daily. Most are lost in a mall, store or other public place and are easily found. Others just come home late. Some are listed as runaways. A small number become pawns in child custody cases. An even smaller number are found to be truly missing and suspected of being abducted. If one searches the Internet using the words "child abduction," one will find more hits for attorneys and private investigators specializing in child custody cases than hits for how to find or prevent child abduction or exploitation. We often hear the most about the truly abducted children because of the sinister and graphic details of the case.

I can remember when parents, law enforcement agencies and schools taught about stranger danger. They taught what children should do if a stranger approached, tried to lure or made it as far as abducting a child. The stranger danger information is valid to this day - to a point. More than 90 percent of child abduction or exploitation cases in this country occur at the hands of a parent, relative, family member or acquaintance or associate of the family. Children should know not to get in a car with any stranger. They should know that strangers will not search them to out to ask for their help and that if any stranger makes them feel ill at ease, they should get away at any cost and then tell their parents or a trusted adult.

Now, factor in the Internet and the age of technology. Children are bombarded with images and messages daily, some of which are not suitable for even some adults. Before, child predators had to search out their victim and almost physically snatch the child from their parents, school or home. Child predators now have an almost anonymous swinging door into the home of the child.

The rules are changing. In addition to stranger danger, law enforcement agencies, schools and churches now have to spread the word that not all child predators or molesters are strangers, but may be someone the child may know and trust. School counselors are already spreading the word through programs such as "Child Lures" and the WHO Program. Law enforcement agencies and private organizations offer free child fingerprinting. Parents should document their child's yearly growth with photos, fingerprints, and videos. Children should know that kids play with kids and adults play with adults; if someone wants to change that rule, the child should let their parents know. Parents must exercise parental control over their child's Internet access. Parents should always know where their children are, and with whom they are spending their time.

We will not be able to prevent every case of child abduction, molestation or exploitation. There will always be cases like the one where the child was kidnapped by relatives in retaliation over a drug dispute. Child custody cases will occur. It should be the hope and goal of every parent to see their child grow without fear of abduction, molestation or exploitation.

For more information on this or any other crime prevention topic, contact the Conroe Police Department Crime Prevention Unit at (936) 522-3327 or (936) 522-3226. If you have a neighborhood problem or want to report drug activity, you can call the Conroe Police Department Narcotics Unit at (936) 522-3303 or by e-mail at cpdnarcotics@cityofconroe.org. For questions, comments, or suggestions about this column, you can contact me at

[Denise]

http://www.wkyc.com/...S&storyid=79046

Local business helps locate missing children

Updated:11/30/2007 6:41:51 PM

TWINSBURG -- Not a day goes by, that Rob McConnell doesn't look at his daughter Bianca's picture, and wonder if he'll ever see his precious little girl again.

"It's unimaginable, if you haven't been in a situation like this," the grieving father said.

Nearly 3 years ago, a family member kidnapped Bianca from her home in Macedonia and fled the country. Since then, her smiling face has been on dozens of websites, including the FBI's, but investigators have yet to find her.

Approximately 800,000 children go missing each year, that's 90 an hour. Rob now fears that his daughter's case will fade from the headlines. But he's getting help from an unlikely stranger.

Dick Starr owns a commercial heating and air conditioning company in Twinsburg. When he heard about Project Home Again, a national program that helps locate missing children, he knew his company, Enterprise Corporation, could help.

"We're probably one of the first to implement the program but the more exposure we can give to missing children, the better it is for everyone," Starr said.

Each of Starr's 15 service vans features missing children from our area, including Bianca.

"You're likely to see these vans on roads and parking lots that are very populated."

Project Home Again is in 28 different states, and has helped locate 127 missing children.
Rob McConnell hopes his daughter will be the next.

[Denise]

http://money.cnn.com...704122007-1.htm

Sprint Joins Forces with National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and National Education Association for New Internet Safety Effort

December 04, 2007: 08:00 AM EST

Sprint Commits $3 Million to Program Providing Tools and Support for Kids, Parents, Guardians and Educators

RESTON, Va., Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Increased access to the Internet has made today's teens more connected than ever. Through computers and handheld wireless devices, teens go online at school, at home, and just about everywhere else they go. With freedom to explore and interact online, they also face more of the potential risks associated with the Internet. To help young teens better understand those risks and to educate parents, guardians, teachers and other adults about the power of the Internet, Sprint is launching the 4NetSafetySM program in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) and the National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN).

4NetSafety is intended to open the lines of communication about Internet safety and offers free resources for children and adults designed to:

-- Help teens understand the impact of the decisions they make online and the potential dangers they face;

-- Educate parents and guardians about the online habits of young people and the free resources available from expert sources to encourage positive dialogue about Internet safety; and

-- Help educators implement Internet safety education and keep parents informed of potential problems.

"We are confident that the 4NetSafety program can help families enjoy the benefits of the Internet while avoiding the dangers," said Ralph Reid, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility for Sprint. "Sprint is making Internet safety a priority by committing $3 million over three years to this effort."

Research conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center for NCMEC shows that youth Internet users face online victimization in multiple forms, including the 1 in 7 who are sexually solicited online and the one-third who experience unwanted exposure to sexual material.

The 4NetSafety resources available to teens address these issues through comic book-style characters who model safer online practices and are designed to appeal to pre-teens and young teens. Found on the NSTeens Website (www.NSTeens.org), this content was created by Internet safety experts at NCMEC's NetSmartz® Workshop, and covers topics like social networking and cyberbullying.

"Just as we teach little children to look both ways when they cross the street, and teach teens about safety on the highway when they learn to drive, we need to teach young people about safety on the information superhighway," said NCMEC President and CEO Ernie Allen. "The 4NetSafety program provides a valuable lesson in 21st century survival skills, thanks to the generous support of Sprint, along with the work of the National Education Association Health Information Network and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children."

4NetSafety resources for adults include safety tips, suggested activities, and discussion ideas that accompany the teen resources. Adults also have free access to the bNetS@vvy E-Newsletter (bNetSavvy.org), an online newsletter published by the NEA HIN that offers adults a vast array of information to help teach pre-teens how to navigate the Internet safely. The publication includes stories from teens, parents, educators, and Internet safety experts.

"Because the Internet plays a big part in the lives of today's kids, it also has to be part of the lives of every parent, guardian, and educator," said Jerald Newberry, Executive Director of NIH HIN. "We see 4NetSafety as an opportunity to harness the power that exists among adults who care about children. By empowering them to help their children be safer online we can ensure that kids hear a consistent message of Internet safety."

4NetSafety will be supported through funds raised by Sprint Project ConnectSM, one of the first nationwide wireless phone recycling programs. Individuals who wish to support the 4NetSafety program through a Sprint Project Connect donation can recycle their old cell phones at a participating Sprint store or go online to www.sprint.com/projectconnect to print a postage paid mailing label.

[Kelly]

http://www.suburbanc...INFO_S1.article

Waukegan police request student information Directory data would help find missing children; School Board consulting attorney

December 26, 2007
By RYAN PAGELOW

Having access to student names, addresses and phone numbers helps police track down missing children quickly when timing is crucial.

The Waukegan Police Department recently requested that Waukegan Public Schools provide student information since the district stopped providing it in 2004. Before then, the district reportedly had provided the information for at least 17 years.

"We use the information if we have missing children," said Sgt. Brian Mullen of the juvenile investigations division, who requested the student information in a letter to the district. "A lot of times a parent might not know where their kid is, but they might know that they are with their best friend John Doe. Now we're trying to track down a friend of our missing kid to see if our missing kid is with them."

During the school day, resource officers in the school or school officials can help find contact information for students, but most requests are after 4 p.m. when school is out, Mullen said. In emergency situations they have had to call school officials in the middle of the night to find contact information, he said.

In the pre-kindergarten and elementary schools where there are usually no resource officers, Mullen said it's important to have information on children because a found child may not know his address or parent's contact information.

This year, 379 juveniles have been reported missing, and 18 of them are currently missing, Mullen said. Missing status also refers to runaways.

This year parents registering their students could opt out of providing the information, said district attorney Thomas Morris. However, the district has not yet given the student directory information to police this year, nor voted on whether they will do it or not.

"The question is, do we want to follow through?" Morris said. The district has 16,955 students, according to the latest figures.

Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, and dates of attendance, under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them.

School Board President June Maguire said the board is waiting for direction from its attorney.

"We said check this out. Let us know what you think about it. He'll probably be reporting back to us. So we're taking no action on it right now," she said.

Mullen also suggested the district consider contracting a photo company for school pictures that would provide a way for parents to give permission to police to electronically access only the photo of their missing child. For example, a parent could give police their username and password to an online photo directory through the photo company.

"You'd be surprised how many people don't have a current photo of their kids," Mullen said.

[Kelly]

http://www.muscatine...1b199713267.txt

Have you seen my child? When does a runaway become a missing
child, and when is missing child a runaway?
The answer's not always clear to parents and police alike. But authorities say that parents shouldn't be afraid to err on the side of caution

By Melissa Regennitter of the Muscatine Journal

MUSCATINE, Iowa — As it grew dark Sunday evening, Jan. 27, the family of 15-year-old Elizabeth Markle became concerned because she had not returned home after asking permission to take a walk.

She left the house at 1:30 p.m. that day and was last seen an hour later walking with a boy on Clay Street. By 10 p.m., Markle’s mother, Diana Westbrook, went to the Musca-tine Police Department to report her missing.

“We had an eerie feeling,” Markle’s sister-in-law, Misty Manard., told the Muscatine Journal the next day. The family had searched for the girl until 4 a.m. Monday, Jan. 28, and was out hanging up fliers and searching roadside ditches, fearing the worst.

Markel’s family was scared because they believed the girl had everything she wanted at home and was allowed freedom — therefore they never imagined she’d run away.

They called park rangers, walked through local stores and youth hangouts, called everyone they knew and all of her friends,  but to no avail.

“There is no reason she would run away, and besides, she’s not that kind of girl,” Manard said with certainty in her voice.

But Markle had run away and was hanging out with a boy who she wasn’t supposed to be with at his home at Cedar Hills Apartments. Markle called home around 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, after being gone for more than 24 hours.

“She just needed a break. That’s what she told us,” Manard said.

The family decided Manard would speak on their behalf for this story.

It’s common for young people to run away, said Lt. Art Anderson of the Muscatine Police Department. Official records show that since June 28, 2005, when the city implemented an electronic method to track the number of missing persons reported, there have been 693 missing persons reports. That number isn’t broken down by age, but Ander-son said the majority of those reports are for young people.

Anderson said that when talking to parents of a runaway, he usually finds that the child was in some sort of trouble at home or school.

“Most of them are disciplinary problems,” he said.

Those problems can become a new case for the Muscatine Police Department, which starts a missing persons report immediately after a child is officially reported as a runaway.

“We immediately collect all the information, start an investigation. A patrol officer checks everywhere they (the family) suspect the child could be,” Anderson said. “Everybody is on it as an ‘attempt to locate’ but one officer is specifically assigned to the case.”

A shift supervisor also gets involved.

Officials connect with the school and call the missing child’s friends and employer.

Anderson said he doesn’t remember a missing person report being filed in Muscatine for a runaway where the child was never found, but he’s quick to caution that parents should contact police if they are concerned about their child’s whereabouts.

“The less time that a runaway is gone the better chance we have of finding them,” he added. “(Parents should) contact police at their own discretion. The sooner that we get on the case the sooner we can start looking for them and have more eyes out there.”

One misconception that people have about a missing person is that they have to wait a certain amount of time — 24 or 48 hours, for example — before reporting a them missing. Lt. Bret Talkington said many people see this information on television crime shows and take it as the truth.

He said there is no rule of thumb when it comes to how long parents should wait before reporting their child missing. It should be based on a child’s previous actions, such as if the child has run away before, if he’s in trouble, if he’s using drugs or if he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd. All of those things should be taken into consideration as parents weigh their options.

Anderson said oftentimes police will find the child, take him home, and the parents are back the next day reporting him as a runaway again.

Assistant Chief Mike Scott said it’s up to the family to reprimand the child. But if the child is a multiple offender and parents have done everything in their power to correct the child’s behavior, that child will be referred to the juvenile court system.

The Muscatine Journal occasionally receives calls from concerned family members about missing children. It is the Journal’s policy to check with police to determine if the child is a runaway and a report is on file. Depending on the circumstances, the editor may or may not decide to run a story. Often times, the child is either found or has returned before the next day’s paper is out, making a story unnecessary.

Markle’s family hopes that she has learned how much trouble and pain she caused by making such a poor decision.

“We wish she would have just called. Now she’s in big trouble,” Manard said.

The family decided to take Markle’s belongings from her bedroom and not allow her to participate in activities. She’ll have to earn them back with good behavior. The teen served in-school suspension on Tuesday, Jan. 29, for skipping classes.

Markle was also required to call as many places as possible where her family posted fliers to tell them she was home, apologize and thank them for trying to help locate her.

“We were so glad to see her, so we didn’t yell. She acted like she didn’t care so we explained how we were scared to death, not the fact that she ran away, but the fact that she could be lying dead on the side of the road,” Manard said. “She needs to take responsibility for her actions.”

[Denise]

http://www.boston.co...3/return_to_me/

Return to Me

Last year's dramatic rescue of Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby proved that missing children - even those gone for years - can be found. But it also serves as a grim reminder that many parents wait years, decades, lifetimes without ever learning the fate of daughters and sons who vanish.

These are the families' websites for some of the missing children featured in this story:

Brianna Maitland: bringbrihome.org
Kimberly Moreau: findkim.com
Maura Murray: mauramurraymissing.com
Angelo "Andy" Puglisi: haveyouseenandy.com

On May 10, 1986, Kimberly Moreau and a neighbor girl were hanging out in the hardscrabble towns of Jay and Livermore Falls when they met two 25-year-old men cruising Main Street in a white Pontiac Trans Am. The four paired off and partied. Eventually, Kimberly and one of the men ended up in the car alone. At about 11 p.m., they swung by her house on Jewell Street in Jay. The teen ran in, told her 19-year-old sister, Karen, she'd be back in an hour, and then got into the car idling outside. She has not been seen or heard from since.

"This is Marilyn Monroe, this is D.B. Cooper, this is Jimmy Hoffa - I mean, for this area," says State Police Detective Mark Lopez, the lead case investigator.

Dick Moreau, 65, has spent two decades hounding the man in the Trans Am, who Lopez says is a "person of interest" in Kimberly's disappearance. "Any time I get the chance to rattle his cage," Moreau says, "I do it." The enraged father has plastered Kimberly fliers on telephone poles leading to the man's house, convinced him to have a three-hour chat at Moreau's kitchen table, talked him into taking a lie-detector test, and showed up at his brother's funeral last spring with Lopez. "I told him I was sorry for his loss of his brother," Moreau recounts. "Then I leaned into him, squeezed his hand, and said, 'I know exactly, exactly how you feel.'"

Families of children who have gone missing suffer through an unthinkable saga of fear, uncertainty, guilt, and grief. Often, they cope with their heartbreak by an almost obsessive need to know what happened, turning to private investigators, psychics, or prayer. Many investigate on their own, meeting with law-enforcement officials and other sources and scouring the Internet for clues. Starting next year, they and the rest of the public will be able to fully search the US Department of Justice's still-in-development National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the first nationwide, online repository of databases of missing-persons reports and records of those who died without being identified. Some families of the missing reach out and console parents who have more recently lost children. Still others retreat into their pain.

It's been a year since the public was reminded of these families' torment when Shawn Hornbeck, then 15, and Ben Ownby, then 13, were rescued from the Missouri pizza-parlor manager who had kidnapped and sodomized them. Shawn had been held captive for four years; Ben, for four days. The older boy's recovery reignited the possibility that other coldcase missing children might be found alive. "It's proof positive that missing children can come home," says Colleen Nick of Alma, Arkansas, a national advocate for missing children whose 6-year-old daughter, Morgan Chauntel Nick, was abducted in 1995 from a Little League baseball game.

But until a child, or a child's remains, are found, searching families are left suspended "between hell and hope," says Magdalen Bish of West Warren, mother of 16-year-old murder victim Molly Bish, whose 2000 abduction from nearby Comins Pond galvanized one of the largest kidnapped-child manhunts in Massachusetts history. Molly's remains were found three years later, 5 miles from her home. (No arrests have been made.) "If you find out your child is dead," says Bish, 56, a first-grade teacher, "your hope is lost, but your hell has ended, because you don't have to worry that anyone is harming them."

The worst child predators are rare. Of the 797,500 children younger than 18 reported missing to authorities in 1999, the last year for which data are available, the vast majority were classified as runaways or "thrown-aways"; were victims of family abductions, typically carried out by parents who didn't have custody; or were only temporarily missing, with a benign explanation. Only an estimated 115 were the victims of what experts call "stereotypical" kidnappings, defined as crimes perpetrated by a stranger or slight acquaintance in which a child is transported 50 miles or more, detained overnight, held for ransom, taken with the intent of being kept permanently, or killed. Of those returned to their families, nearly half have been sexually abused and about a third injured by their captors. Four in 10 stereotypical kidnapping victims - predominantly white teenage girls - end up dead; 4 percent are never found. Last September, the FBI signaled how seriously it takes the risk posed by those who prey on children when it added New Hampshire pedophile Jon Savarino Schillaci to its Ten Most Wanted list, alongside Osama bin Laden and James "Whitey" Bulger.

WHEN THE NATIONAL MISSING AND UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS SYSTEM becomes fully available next year, families of missing children will have more clues at their fingertips. But already they troll websites like The Doe Network and others, picking through grisly case files of unidentified human remains found across the country, looking for a match. Kellie Maitland of DeKalb Junction, New York, has stared at the morgue photographs and forensic artists' renderings of Jane Does - grotesque, wax-museumlike figures with dead eyes - searching for the face of her missing daughter, Brianna Maitland. The bestcase but least likely scenario, she says, is that Brianna "ran off or fell in love with someone and made a split decision, took off to somewhere warm and exotic and is having a good time."

Brianna, then 17, was last seen at about 11:20 p.m. on March 19, 2004, leaving the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, Vermont, where she was a dishwasher. The next day, her Oldsmobile Delta 88 was found a mile away backed into the side of an abandoned house, the rear bumper hung up on the concrete foundation. There were no signs of a struggle and no sign of Brianna. "The police tell me that most likely this was a homicide," says Maitland, 47, who helps her husband, Bruce, run their small Highland-Angus cattle farm. "If Brianna's alive, she won't be a teenager anymore. She'll be, like, 21. What if she's been abused? What if she needs rehab? What if? What if?"

In the early days of the search, the mother - who speaks of Brianna in both the present tense and past tense - heard that a body in a garbage bag had been discovered near where her daughter had disappeared. "We tried to go bed that night," she recalls, "and we laid down and we held hands and we just hoped that it wasn't her. `Please, just don't let it be. Don't let it be.' " When morning came, the couple's prayers were answered: The remains were those of a pig.

The anguish of not knowing, and the search for answers, often takes parents of missing children on "horrendous emotional roller-coaster rides," says Nancy McBride, national safety director at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "A lead will come in; it will look really, really promising and then turn out not to be. . . . You're up and you're down, there's really no steadiness. You're also in this limbo where you can't really move forward."

Brianna Maitland's father, Bruce, and Fred Murray of Weymouth, whose daughter is also missing, became friends as they searched for a possible connection between their cases, though police agencies have ruled that out. Maura Murray, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts at Amherst nursing student, vanished after crashing her car into a snowbank in Woodsville, New Hampshire, near the Vermont border, the night of February 9, 2004 -the month before Brianna's disappearance. The fathers' newly forged bond is based not only on a mutual effort to find their daughters, but also an unspoken understanding: "We don't say, you know, 'Poor you. Poor you,' " Murray says. "Everybody's grief is personal. He knows how I feel; I know how he feels."

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has a support group for searching families, called Team HOPE, but many families, like those of Brianna Maitland and Maura Murray, create their own informal networks to console and assist one another through the overwhelming trauma. Bereft parents, siblings, even aunts and cousins call and e-mail one another with encouragement, link to other families' websites to publicize their cases, print and distribute missing-child fliers and buttons, participate in searches for one another's children, and send sympathy cards and flowers when a child's body is found.

LYMAN AND CLAIRE MOULTON OF Portland, Maine, have been keeping a private vigil for 37 years for the 16-year-old daughter they knew - and her alter ego, a 52-year-old woman they can't imagine - hoping against hope she's still alive. Their ordeal began the afternoon of September 24, 1971, when Cathy Marie Moulton got a ride into town from her father to buy pantyhose for the YWCA dance she planned to attend that night. She was supposed to walk the 2 miles back along busy Forest Avenue but never made it home for dinner. "One of my greatest - greatest, greatest - sadnesses is that I may die ... and never know what happened to Cathy," says her 83-year-old father, a retired auto dealer, his blue eyes turning moist. "And yet I'm helpless to change it."

Former Portland detective William Deetjen, who worked the case in the late 1980s, theorizes that, after shopping in Portland, Cathy accepted a ride in a Cadillac from a boy she liked. Weeks later, there were unconfirmed sightings of the pair and another male in remote, sparsely populated Aroostook County - about 300 miles north of Maine's largest city - but no solid evidence she had been there or had been abducted.

For years, her parents have been tormented by something one of the purported witnesses said: that Cathy, working in the potato fields, kept begging to go home. "I've always held out the hope that, maybe, somehow, she has amnesia as a result of a beating or something," says Claire Moulton, a 78-year-old former nurse, "and she is alive and has a life and doesn't know who she is."

Experts say families looking for lost children experience a unique kind of despair. "Parents are fearful about their child's uncertain fate and feel guilty for not adequately protecting the child," says Dr. Sharon Cooper, a Fayetteville, North Carolina, forensic pediatrician and authority on crimes against children. The ongoing absence is like a death, without a body to grieve over.

"It's like your worst, most horrible nightmare that you never wake up from," explains John Walsh, the host of the Fox television series America's Most Wanted and the father of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, snatched from a Florida shopping mall in 1981, killed, and decapitated. (The prime suspect was never charged and died in prison serving life for other crimes.) "And it's not just grief. It's disbelief.

"We celebrate Adam's life, not the horrible day that he was found missing," the 62-year-old Walsh says, "but we're only able to do that because we know where he is and what happened to him. . . . I can name thousands of cases where parents have no idea what happened to their child. Dead, alive? Is the child involved in the sex trade? Child pornography? Where is the child? How were they murdered? Where is the body, so we can go and pay our respects to it?"

MANY PARENTS OF MISSING CHILDREN devise "one view of the future that includes the missing child and another future that does not," says Cooper. They can vacillate back and forth, or they can hold dual perceptions forever. Often, though, when the missing child reaches theoretical adulthood, that coping mechanism collapses. "If the missing child has now become an adult in the parent's mind, if they are still alive . . . the parent is expecting the child to now be able to make the decision that they'll come back home." If the child does not return, she says, the parents must confront four possible reasons: The child is dead; has forgotten the parents (credible for children kidnapped at age 6 or younger); is angry at the parents for not protecting or finding him or her; or is physically restricted or confined.

It took Faith Puglisi of Fountain, Colorado, 30 years to come to the conclusion that her missing son most likely was murdered. Ten-year-old Angelo "Andy" Puglisi disappeared August 21, 1976, from Higgins Memorial Pool in Lawrence, about 100 yards from his front door. Several investigators and family members interviewed for last year's Cinemax documentary Have You Seen Andy? by Medford filmmaker Melanie Perkins are convinced he was stalked and abducted by a sexual predator or predators working in concert. (The case remains unsolved.) "Every now and then, I go into that room that is Andy's room in my heart, where I keep all the information and all the emotions about him," says Puglisi, a 58-year-old pediatric nurse who says she copes by compartmentalizing. "When that door pops open - and I'm starting to connect with all this emotion - there's always that risk I'm going to lose it. A lot of times, I have to slam that door shut."

Some parents never accept the possibility that their longtime missing child is dead. Experts says that's because, psychologically, they have spent years keeping the child alive in their minds, and in everyone else's memory, and by suddenly choosing to believe that the child is deceased - without irrefutable proof - parents feel as though they have killed the child in their thought processes.

"We have a nine-room house here that the children grew up in," Lyman Moulton says, mentioning he and Claire have talked about abandoning their Dutch Colonial for smaller quarters, "but the truth of the matter is, Cathy lived in this house. The truth of the matter is, she knows, or hopefully would know, where this house is." Wringing his hands, he adds: "We've kept the same phone number. I would fight to the end of time to keep this phone number. . . . You could say, 'Oh, my Lord!' but what else have we got?"

Families of cold-case missing children go on missing them - long after the press and public have lost interest - and, in the end, only finding the child or the child's remains can put to rest their searching and waiting.

"You never get to say goodbye, you know," says Magdalen Bish, mother of the Massachusetts girl whose remains were found. "When Molly came home, we just had her 26 bones. We held her skull. We touched her bones, because we needed to say goodbye, but it wasn't the Molly that we knew."

For Dick Moreau, even a fragment of one of the 206 bones in the human body would be enough. Slowly, agonizingly, Moreau had come to the conclusion that his daughter was dead, and he had a death certificate issued in 1993. Now he'd like to bury Kimberly next to her paternal grandparents and her mother. (Kimberly's mother, Patricia Moreau, died at age 48 in 1988.) "All they're looking for now is the major bones of the body, like the elbow, the knee, the hip joint, these kinds of things," Moreau says clinically, having learned over the years about decomposition rates. "We're probably looking for a piece of bone that's 3 by 3 inches - if we're lucky. But that's all we need. It's still her."

[Denise]

http://www.guardian....mar/15/ukcrime1

'When a person goes missing, they can return. Don't give up'

Duncan Campbell The Guardian, Saturday March 15 2008

When a child has been missing for more than a week and is not the subject of a parental custody battle, the chances of them being found alive start to dwindle, as the family of Madeleine McCann have learned since she was abducted in Portugal last year. But there are still many examples of children who are abducted but survive.

In 1999 Lisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon, then 10, were grabbed on the street on their way to school in St Leonards, East Sussex.

Their abductor Alan Hopkinson, a paedophile who had already served a five year sentence for kidnapping, bundled them into the boot of his car and drove them to his flat in Eastbourne.He kept them locked up there as a massive police hunt was launched.

Four days later, the girls were found by chance. They not only lived to tell their tale but spoke about their experience in detail last month in a Channel 4 documentary, The Girls Who Were Found Alive. They told how they kept each other's spirits up even though, for a while, they believed that they would spend the rest of their lives locked up. "When someone goes missing they can come back," said Lunnon, now 19. "Don't give up hope."

Both girls said it was possible to come through the experience. "We got through this," said Lunnon. "It hasn't ruined our lives. We want people to know that."

The best known international case of an abducted child surviving is probably that of the Austrian schoolgirl, Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive in a house for eight years before finally escaping in 2006. In an interview after she was released she said of her abductor, who took his own life: "Sometimes I dreamed that if I owned an axe, I would chop his head off ... I promised myself I would grow older, stronger and sturdier to be able to break free one day."

According to the charity Missing People, who received an early tip about Shannon's whereabouts, some 70% of young people under 16 who were reported missing were absent by choice, 4% had "drifted away", 10% were unintentionally missing and 8% forced to leave. Since 2002, the police have recorded between 600 and 1,000 child abductions and attempted abductions annually, according to the Home Office. Of these a very small proportion were instances where a child was taken by a stranger.

[Kelly]

MISGUIDED AND PHONY AMBER ALERTS PUT CHILDREN AT RISK

4/18/08

Press Release issued by:

UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL
MARK SHURTLEFF

Numerous Utah residents received a text message on their cell phones over the weekend with this alarming message: “AMBER ALERT! two little girls kidnapped the suspect is driving a brown jeep liberty. Headed towards billings area license plate #43-6519. KEEP THIS GOING!”

Here is the problem: two girls had not been abducted in Utah, the AMBER Alert was not issued by a Utah law enforcement agency and the message did not have enough information for the public to help with a recovery. The real AMBER Alert was issued in Montana on April 11 and the two girls were recovered on April 13.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff issued a warning today asking the public to only respond to AMBER Alerts from authorized sources. “We have learned from sad experience that seconds can mean the difference between life or death in child abductions,” says Shurtleff. “AMBER Alerts from unknown sources could lead to a delayed response from the public and jeopardize the integrity of the entire AMBER Alert plan.”

The Utah AMBER Alert Plan sends alerts out through radio and television, highway advisory signs and the 511 travel information phone line. The public can also receive AMBER Alerts by text for free by signing up at www.wirelessamberalerts.org.

“These alerts are well intentioned but they are creating mass confusion,” says Robert Hoever, Associate Director of Training for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). “I am really concerned that something like this could cause the AMBER Alert Program to lose credibility with the public. We need to protect its integrity by educating the public to obtain AMBER Alerts from a legitimate source.”

The recent text message has been circulated all across the country and is the latest example of misguided and even fake AMBER Alerts being sent nationwide. Many of the so-called AMBER Alerts that circulate by text message and e-mail involve cases that have already been resolved or outright hoaxes, including:

● A 9-year-old girl named Penny Brown has been missing for two weeks. This hoax has been circulating by e-mail since 2001.


● A 15-year-old boy named Evan Trembley has been missing for two weeks. A Wichita Falls TV station reported the prankster behind this fake AMBER Alert is the “missing boy” in the picture.


● A 13-year-old Philadelphia girl named Ashley Flores has been missing for two weeks. This e-mail has been circulating since 2006 and NCMEC has never found a missing child by this name or description.


A person who sends a false AMBER Alert in Utah could be charged with a class B misdemeanor, which can carry a punishment of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. A violation occurs when a person “reports an emergency or causes an emergency to be reported to any public, private, or volunteer entity whose purpose is to respond to fire, police, or medical emergencies, when the actor knows the reported emergency does not exist.”

The pranksters are not only breaking the law but they are also taking advantage of people who simply want to save an abducted child.

“As of today, we have 393 reasons to be proud of how successful and effective the AMBER Alert System has been in assisting our communities in responding to missing and abducted children,” says National AMBER Alert Coordinator Jeffrey L. Sedgwick. “

Maintaining a solid reputation by guarding against the spread of misinformation is vital to our continued success.”

Utah Broadcasters Association President Dale Zabriskie echoes that sentiment: “The AMBER Alert is too valuable a law enforcement tool to have damaged by thoughtless actions.”

For more information about Utah’s AMBER Alert Plan, please visit www.amberalert.utah.gov

[Denise]

http://www.wiscnews....php?ntid=285594

Police realize need for kidnapping plan after close calls

By Trevor Kupfer, Dells Events
wde-news@capitalnewspapers.com

When a report comes in of a child missing at a waterpark, Wisconsin Dells Police Detective Jed Seidl used to think "Oh, a kid's lost in the park somewhere." Ever since an official from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children referred to the Dells as "a predatory smorgasbord," he has felt differently.

"They're here, and we know it," Seidl said.

Though there's no way of knowing exactly how many sexual predators visit Dells waterparks each year, police and resort personnel responded to at least two close calls in the past year that have helped them realize the need to establish a response procedure.

In January of this year, a lifetime registered sex offender came to the Dells and allegedly enticed children at a waterpark and later on the roadway while in his van.

The subject's history includes abducting and sexually assaulting two female strangers; taking another teenager to a motel room, knocking her unconscious and assaulting her; and abducting and assaulting another at a bus stop.

In January two Lake Delton officers responded to a waterpark when a manager reported several complaints of a man attempting to get young girls to leave with him. The man purchased a day pass to the resort, and did not have a room or bathing suit.

According to a young female waterpark patron, when she exited the locker room the man put his hand on her back and asked her where she was going. Video surveillance also showed the suspect following another young girl, touching her shoulders and talking to her. Two other families reported suspicious activity regarding the suspect, but police were unable to locate them.

Since the suspect was not doing anything illegal, the officers asked him to leave the resort and not return to any other park. "It is my belief that he ... was at the resort to abduct or sexually assault a young woman," an officer's report said.

One day later, a teenage boy in Wisconsin Dells reported being approached by the suspect, who asked the boy to get in his van. When the boy refused, the suspect allegedly left his van and followed him. The boy then stepped into oncoming traffic and rode safely home with two strangers.

After the man left Wisconsin Dells, he is arrested in another area for videotaping girls in a Wal-Mart parking lot and police recover loads of suspect items in his van. He is awaiting charges from several departments, including Wisconsin Dells.

In June of last year, two waterparks reported asking a man to leave after videotaping park guests. The subject's history included abducting a family a acquaintance and the sexual assault of his stepchild. Three days after leaving the parks and Wisconsin Dells, he was arrested for the sexual assault of a teenage girl. Wisconsin Dells police didn't hear about his stint at the parks until days later.

When Seidl met with resort security representatives last week, he presented statistics from the Washington State Child Homicide Study from 2006, which includes more than 700 child homicide cases from 44 states. According to the study, one in 10,000 children is abducted by a stranger each year.

"Think there's 10,000 children here any given weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day?" Seidl said.

Familial abductions account for one child every three minutes or 559 each day, according to the study. Far more children are killed or injured by their parents than by strangers.

"Contrary to what we believe, a parent does not abduct their own child out of concern for them," Seidl said. "In estranged relationships, the parent abducted the child as a way to retaliate against the other parent. We get these all the time in the Dells."

In 2007 alone, Dells police had 22 custody-related complaints at waterparks or hotels. Since 2001, Lake Delton Police have written reports for three first-degree sexual assaults, 20 second-degree, nine third-degree, 40 fourth-degree and 17 miscellaneous sexual offenses. But sexual assault cases involving children topped them all with 55 reports, which includes arrests and complaints.

The Washington study also found that abduction cases are typically reported to police as a missing child, and there's no indication of foul play.

"How many parents report their children lost or missing in an average summer?" Seidl asked.

Part of the reason children are at risk, according to the study and police, is the false sense of security that parents have on vacation.

"How many drownings do we have where we find out the parents weren't close by," said Janet Klipp, a detective for Lake Delton Police.

Seidl said waterparks and resorts shouldn't only worry about travelers, but people from the area and workers as well. The national and state sex offender registries list between 10 and 16 known offenders living in the Dells. Since 2004, 10 registered offenders have notified Lake Delton police that they were visiting the area.

"And we know very little about the people we employ, yet children can identify them because of their uniform," Seidl said, adding it's imperative that employers check the backgrounds of their workers.

"If it gets released that someone you hired kidnapped a child, you tell me what the headlines will say," he added.

In his 20 years as a police officer in Wisconsin Dells, Seidl said he has never encountered a child abduction case. Despite that fact, Seidl said it's not a matter of if it will happen, but when it will happen.

"And, hopefully, we'll be prepared when it does and prevent a statistic," he said.

Police and resort security personnel are in the process of developing plans in the event of a child abduction, and will have a meeting to discuss the options on June 3.

[Denise]

http://www.liverpool...00252-20963144/

Bracelet to keep kids safe

May 23 2008 by Mary Murtagh, Liverpool Echo

MORE than 20,000 identity wristbands have been given away in the city centre as part of a project to keep missing children safe.

Launched in March the Child Safe Zone scheme aims to reunite lost youngsters with their parents while out shopping.

It was set up by Liverpool Central business improvement district (Bid) and funded by Bid, Citysafe and St John’s centre.

The scheme operates a hotline which connects the CCTV control rooms of Liverpool council, St John’s shopping centre and Clayton Square shopping centre if a child goes missing.

[Kelly]

OJJDP Publication Helps Youth Overcome Abduction Trauma

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has published "You're Not Alone: The Journey From Abduction to Empowerment."

Written by five survivors of child abductions, the publication provides information to help child abduction survivors cope with their experiences and begin the journey toward a better future. It joins two previous OJJDP publications, "When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide" and "What About Me? Coping With the Abduction of a Brother or Sister," in a series that assists families coping with abduction.

Resources:

"You're Not Alone: The Journey From Abduction to Empowerment" (NCJ 221965) is available at http://ojjdp.ncjrs.g...sp?pubi=244130.

Print copes may be ordered at http://www.ncjrs.gov...alphaList.aspx. For quick access, search by document number.

-----------------------------------------------------
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Progams in the U.S. Department of Justice.

[Denise]

http://www.kfsm.com/...y.asp?S=8458997

UA Prof Researches People's Ability to Memorize Faces of Missing Children

Posted: June 10, 2008 02:54 PM CDT
Updated: June 10, 2008 02:54 PM CDT 

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Photos of missing children posted at supermarket exits are one effort by law enforcement agencies and foundations to reunite children and families. Research led by James Michael Lampinen of the University of Arkansas revealed, however, that few customers could identify the children's faces upon leaving the store.

While better methods of publicizing missing children are needed, Lampinen also suggests ways people can improve their chances of remembering the faces of missing children.

"I think we all get so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that - even though we care about the problem of missing children - we often don't take the time to look at the photos of those kids and commit them to memory," Lampinen said. "As researchers, we should start working on ways of improving people's attention to these posters."

Lampinen and co-authors Jack Arnal and Jason L. Hicks report on their research in "The Effectiveness of Supermarket Posters in Helping to Find Missing Children" in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

The researchers surveyed 142 customers as they left a supermarket that posted photos of missing children. The vast majority of respondents called the problem of missing children important or extremely important, yet more than 70 percent did not look at the posters at all, and another 20 percent only looked briefly.

"Customers at this store displayed no evidence of memory for the children's pictures," the researchers reported. "This was true regardless of the importance the customers attached to the issue, the self-reported time spent looking at the pictures, and the customer's intention to look for the children in the community."

To remember faces from a poster, people exercise memory known as "prospective person memory." This type of memory has been little researched. In his university lab, Lampinen has been conducting research to better understand how well people can recognize other people they've been told to be on the look-out for, such as wanted fugitives.

Lampinen suggests two simple things people can do to improve their memory for the faces of missing children. First, he suggests, people should take a few minutes to look at the photos of missing children during the next visit to the supermarket, engaging in what is called "implementation intention."

"Previous research has shown that if you repeat an intention to yourself three times out loud, you can dramatically increase doing whatever it is you intend to do," Lampinen said.

Lampinen suggested that people look at the faces in the posters holistically.

"One mistake we sometimes make is to try to memorize a face in the same way we memorize a string of words," Lampinen said. "A string of words you can memorize one word at a time. With a face, you can't just remember the eyes and then the nose and then the mouth. Rather, faces are best remembered as perceptual wholes. You have to take it all in."

He suggests that people make qualitative judgments about the face that relate the child's appearance to their personal life by thinking who the child looks like.

"Try to picture the child's face in different situations," Lampinen said. "This can improve the holistic encoding of the face."

The researchers acknowledge that there is much to be done to improve recognition of missing children. They are currently developing and testing improved methods, including looking at marketing psychology.

"If in-store marketing can increase sales of sodas and snack chips, it seems reasonable to believe that effective approaches can be developed to make the public aware of missing children," the researchers wrote.

Lampinen is an associate professor of psychology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Jack Arnal earned his doctorate in psychology from the University of Arkansas in 2008. Jason L. Hicks is an associate professor of psychology at Louisiana State University.

[Kelly]

http://rochesterhome...text/?cid=24311

Safe Kids: Team Hope

Reported by: Katrina Irwin
Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 @07:13am EST

The New York Branch of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is located in Rochester.  Earlier this week, it served as a meeting place for families of missing children from across the country. 

The organization is called "Team Hope"

"Team hope is a support network for families who have missing children, everyone in team hope has either had or still has a missing child and in the midst of their own personal tragedy they help other families," says Abby Potash.  She is Team Hope's project manager.  "In 1997, my son was missing for 8 and a half months, when he was 10 years old.  He was actually recovered by a picture, the ones that come to the household."  She shares her experience with the rest of these hopeful parents, grandparents, and siblings, because no one really knows what it is like to have a missing child, like these people do.

"Frankly it helps to talk to someone who understands so we can give them that emotional support from the viewpoint of truly understanding and truly getting it. A lot of people when you are in this situation say things they think are helpful but unfortunately they really aren't that helpful. Because they don't really understand," says Pam Schmidt.  Her granddaughter Erica Baker has been missing since February of 1999.  She turned to Team Hope, when there was no one else to talk to.

Now, she is training 29 other parents so that they can, in turn, reach out to the thousands of others who are in their shoes.

"We've come together as people who have been through this situation, we understand what's going on and can be so helpful to families," she says. 

If you would like to support or learn more about Team Hope call 1-866-305-4673 or click here http://www.teamhope.org/

Kelly Jolkowski of Project Jason is a TEAM Hope volunteer.

[Denise]

http://www.statesman...30children.html

Center for missing children opens in Austin
High number of sex offenders in Texas adds urgency to new regional office's work, Perry says.

By Emily Glazer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children opened a regional office in Austin on Monday.

The office, the first in Texas and the fourth in the nation, will provide training for law enforcement officials and prosecutors that will emphasize Internet-related crimes against children.

The other regional offices of the center, a private nonprofit child advocacy group, are in New York, Florida and California. The center is based in Alexandria, Va.

The Austin office will work with governmental and nongovernmental organizations on prevention and education programs about child safety.

"Every child deserves to be safe," said Diane Allbaugh, an Austin businesswoman and the wife of Joe Allbaugh, a former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a close associate of President Bush.

Diane Allbaugh spearheaded the $2 million fundraising effort to create the regional office.

"We have declared not here, not in Texas and not our children," she said at a news conference Monday.

Center co-founder John Walsh, who also hosts "America's Most Wanted," said that having a regional office in Texas has been a goal for the past three years.

Texas ranks second in the nation in the number of registered sex offenders, according to the center. Of the more than 645,000 registered sex offenders nationwide, more than 50,000 live in Texas, the center said. California has the most: 114,692.

Additionally, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing nationwide each year, the center said.

In 2006, more than 60,000 children were reported missing in Texas.

"It's the statistics that motivate us to be more vigorous of our children's safety," Gov. Rick Perry said. We place "a laser focus on defending the defenseless."

For law enforcement officials trying to apprehend criminals and rescue children, the state's 1,254-mile border with Mexico creates a flight problem, according to the center.

"Sex offenders easily roam through this country. ... Many go south," Walsh said, adding that 40 fugitives on his show have been caught in Mexico.

Ernie Allen, the center's chief executive officer, said that private donations will pay for the Austin office's operating expenses and that the center will pay for two case managers.

"Our intent is to build this entity in Texas and to gradually grow and expand," Allen said.