92 replies to this topic

[Lori Davis]

http://www.leadertel...?id=BH9JRF1SEF2

Woman to help families of missing people

Updated: 7/26/2008 11:12:01 PM         
By Chuck Rupnow 
Leader-Telegram staff 

PEPIN - Jennifer Bocksell still gets misty-eyed and emotional when recalling how it felt to have her young son taken from her and then found about 15 months later.

That was almost five years ago.

Bocksell and supporters went on a national campaign to locate her son Christopher, who was taken by his father during visitation on Memorial Day weekend 2002.

The boy and his father, Mark Samples, were found in September 2003 near Youngstown, Ohio. Authorities received a tip on Samples' location after the airing of a missing persons television program.

Bocksell will celebrate her 36th birthday Saturday, but her focus that day will be on Christopher's Crusade Fundraiser Event, a day of activities designed to benefit families of missing people.

"It'll bring back a lot of memories for all of us," said Bocksell, who with her husband, Mark Bocksell, are raising Christopher and their 22-month-old son, Reeden. "But it will be great to celebrate the anniversary of his (Christopher's) safe return.

"I've been thinking about it for a year or so, on how to commemorate this amazing day in our lives," Jennifer Bocksell said. "I decided that not enough is being done, and this is the way to do it. There just isn't enough support out there for the families that are searching for the missing.

"We're going to try and help victims' families in Wisconsin and surrounding states," Bocksell said. "There are two cases right now of families searching for missing loved ones."

A local committee is being formed to oversee the collection and distribution of funds for various families who need help with finances, organization or other tools to help them in their search efforts.

"Whether it's posters, or rent, or other things, there are expenses involved with looking for a loved one while still trying to maintain a job and home," Bocksell said. "That's what we want to help with."

Bocksell knows all too well the importance of a good support system, admitting that she was buoyed during her time of distress by support from the Pepin area community and many others.

Events will be at the Pepin Sportsman's Club, just off Highway CC, a few miles northwest of the village. Daytime events, including family activities and music, run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Musical entertainment by recording artist and Elmwood native Vicky Emerson, and an auction, is scheduled from 7 to 10 p.m.

Christopher, 8, is expected to toll a bell for missing children. An estimated 1,000 balloons bearing name tags of missing children will be released at 4 p.m.

There are currently 931 missing children and 267 missing adults in Wisconsin, according to July 1 figures from the National Crime Information Center.

"I think about it every day," said Bocksell, a special education teacher in the Pepin school district. "Once someone goes missing, the fear is there forever."

[Jenn]

Pooch Hired By Cops To Sniff Out Missing Persons

Nov 15, 2008 6:48 pm US/Central

http://wcco.com/pets...g.2.865536.html

WCCO) He's one of the only ones in the state, complete with wrinkly skin and slobber. Hercules is the newest K-9 deputy in Hennepin County Sheriff's Office and was brought specifically to help the department with tracking live people.

"He is very good at finding people," said Deputy Barry Heikkinen, his handler.

Hercules doesn't look for bodies, evidence or even criminals. He's not an apprehension dog, which is why he continues to be so friendly when he finds who he's looking for.

So far, Heikkinen and Hercules have had to search for 10 people, including an Alzheimer's patient and two missing children. They haven't found anyone yet because the people were already found or went into cars.

Heikkinen trains him every day. At a Girl Scout camp in Sherburne County Saturday morning, he looked for a specialty trainer with only the scent of her hat. Hercules ran quickly, followed her every turn and found her within minutes.

"When we're walking around, we're shedding skin cells and that's what he's scenting on is the dead skin cells," said Heikkinen.

Bloodhounds are known for their tracking skills because of their physical attributes. The ears which drag against the ground waft in a person's scent. His nose is 100,000 to 300,000 times more sensitive than a human's and the loose skin on his face forces his eyes closed.

"He's not looking and he's not listening. All he's doing is smelling, so he'll follow that scent," explained Heikkinen.

Hercules is not obedience-trained, to allow him to follow his nose, rather than the trainer. He lives with the Heikkinen family and keeps them busy by being a big fan of the butter.

"He's like a toddler. If it's quiet in the house for 30 seconds, you wonder what Hercules got into," said Heikkinen.

[Jenn]

http://www.bismarckt...news/170640.txt

Cases of missing adults harder to handle

Nov 30, 2008 - 04:05:25 CST

Bismarck Tribune

Your son is missing. Or your sister. Or your grandfather, who has Alzheimer's disease.

But in any case, the missing person is older than 18 - an adult. And adults have the right to leave without telling anyone where they are going, who they are with or why they left.

For law enforcement officials, cases of missing adults are among the harder ones to handle. Adults have the right to do what they want and go where they want, but loved ones left behind wonder where they are and seek to know that they are OK.

Law enforcement officials have to balance the missing person's right to privacy with the desire of family or friends to know what's happened, and a bill being proposed to the 2009 North Dakota Legislature would set out procedures for law enforcement to follow.

Bismarck Police Lt. Randy Ziegler said he was asked to write the department's policy on missing adults a few years ago following the disappearance of an elderly Bismarck man. The policy sets out the responsibilities of officers, investigators and supervisors, and how to proceed with reports and disseminating information to other agencies and the public.

The policy includes instructions for what information needs to be gathered and what kinds of people would be considered "high-risk missing persons" based on the gathered information. From beginning to end, the policy sets out how police should proceed when an adult is reported missing.

"We consider missing persons very serious cases," Bismarck Police Chief Keith Witt said.

When a child is missing under unknown circumstances, law enforcement agencies know what to do, Ziegler said. Amber Alerts go out to the public, and officers begin searching.

But when the missing people are adults, police enter a sort of gray area.

How to handle the cases depends largely on the information gathered. If the missing person has dementia, is sick and does not have the necessary medicine, or may have been abducted, police are likely to get information out quickly in an effort to find the person.

"Based on that, obviously we would do some initial notifications" to other agencies or the media, Witt said.

But if the person is a healthy, capable adult, law enforcement agencies are cautious in proceeding.

In a recent case, Kimberly Cooklin, 26, was reported missing by her employer as well as others in the community. Police visited her apartment, which was still full of her belongings. She had contact with family members, but her whereabouts still were not known. People worried that she may have been taken against her will, so police continued searching and trying to contact her. The department gave the media information to put out about Cooklin in the event that someone in the community knew where she was.

Eventually, Cooklin contacted a detective and was able to give enough information about herself that the case was closed. Police still were not positive where she was, but she told them she wanted to be left alone. Even though the incident was out of character for the woman and still left questions unanswered, police decided to close the case.

"If you don't want to be found, that is your right," Ziegler said.

Sometimes, the person who is reported missing actually has been hiding out from the person making the report, such as in cases of domestic violence. In those cases, the person making the report would be told that the "missing" person is safe and given no further information.

In some instances, the Bismarck Police Department has used a community emergency notification system, in which a recorded call goes out to all landline phones in a certain area. That way, if a person disappears, as many people as possible in the immediate neighborhood get direction information about the person and can be on the lookout for him or her, Ziegler said.

If a person is never found, a "cold case" investigator maintains the case for the Bismarck Police Department, Witt said.

"Those will stay open indefinitely," he said, noting that Bismarck has several "cold cases."

Though the Bismarck Police Department and other large departments in the state have policies regarding missing persons, not all departments do, said Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Dickinson.

Johnson attended a conference in Philadelphia put on by the Department of Justice in 2005. At the conference, she learned that there are many unidentified human remains in the country, but no national system to link the remains to the identity of a missing person. Legislators at the conference were encouraged to work toward state laws setting up law enforcement procedures for handling cases of missing persons and unidentified human remains.

In 2007, Johnson sponsored Concurrent Resolution 3056, which directed the interim Judicial Process Committee to study the search for and identification of missing persons.

"It's too big of a deal to just dump into a bill" without studying, she said.

Coming out of that committee, of which Johnson is a member, is a bill that would set out procedures for all law enforcement agencies to follow when someone reports someone else missing or when unidentified human remains are found.

The bill, based on model legislation from the Department of Justice, would require law enforcement agencies to take any report of a missing person, set out procedures to follow in the case of a missing person or found remains, and require information about missing persons or found remains to be entered into national databases.

Witt has problems with the legislation, though it is similar to his department's policies and he plans to incorporate parts of it dealing with unidentified human remains into the department policy. Burleigh County Sheriff Pat Heinert also said he thinks the legislation contains good ideas for policy, though he thinks there are too many variables involved in investigations to put it in state law.

"There are some good things in it," he said.

Witt said placing detailed law enforcement procedures in state law can make it hard to change how things are handled when new technologies become available or if a situation calls for a different procedure, and Heinert doesn't think state law should instruct law enforcement agencies in how to run an investigation.

"I'm not necessarily supporting that," Heinert said.

Johnson countered that the Legislature meets every two years and could change the law in case of a new technology that conflicts with statutes.

The bill would require law enforcement agencies to take any missing person report, regardless of whether there is any evidence the missing person had a connection to the area. Law enforcement officials worry that the requirement could be problematic due to jurisdictional restraints. While nationally people may have problems getting someone to take a report, North Dakota agencies typically want to help people, they said.

Mandan Police Chief Dennis Bullinger worries that someone in another state could report someone missing in California, then Mandan police would be responsible for following up on the report if they couldn't find a more appropriate agency willing to take responsibility for it.

"I don't know how Iwould have investigative duty" in another state or community, Bullinger said.

"I understand that concern," Johnson said.

However, she thinks people looking for a lost loved one may need to find a law enforcement agency willing to take a report to get the ball rolling. For instance, if someone from North Dakota has an adult child going to college in Minneapolis who plans to go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break but never makes it there, a parent might not know to whom to report the disappearance.

"Who do I call?" she said.

Police in Minneapolis may say the person left, so it's not their responsibility, and those in Florida may say they don't need to get involved because he never arrived, Johnson speculated. But law enforcement in the person's hometown might be able to take the report, then help convince law enforcement in the appropriate jurisdiction to take over investigations, she said.

"You need to have somebody take ownership," she said.

Johnson said a missing person who is not located can be entered into a national database that includes DNA. Then, if some day remains matching that DNA also get entered into the database, family and friends of the missing person could have some closure. Without that link, the missing person case would remain unsolved, and the human remains found somewhere else would remain unidentified, she said.

Witt and Heinert suggest a bill be put forward that requires law enforcement agencies to have a policy on missing persons that would fit each agency, instead of the detail bill proposed. Then, the state could help agencies develop their policies. Such a law was put in place requiring agencies to have domestic violence policies.

Johnson agreed agencies should have their own policies, but she worried that smaller agencies wouldn't have the time or resources to write their own.

"Would it get done? Would it get put into place?" she asked.

Johnson said concerns about the bill could be taken into consideration for possible amendments once the legislative session is under way. But she said she thinks the legislation could help people struggling to find out where their loved ones are.

"What's important to know is that no matter where your loved one might be, you can get some help,"she said, noting that such a law would be a success if it helped even one family get answers. "That's what it's all about."

[Jenn]

http://www.redorbit....an_help_return/

If You Have a Cell Phone, You Can Help Return Abducted Children, Missing Persons

Posted on: Monday, 15 December 2008, 10:29 CST

ATLANTA, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Keep Georgia Safe, Georgia's only private, non-profit organization with the mission to provide safety education and crime prevention training to Georgia's families and law enforcement agencies, has partnered with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to communicate abduction alerts via cell phones. Now, when the GBI issues an alert that a child has been abducted, Keep Georgia Safe immediately sends the abduction information to subscribers' cell phones.

"Statistics show that the first three hours after a child's abduction are the most critical in recovery," says Keep Georgia Safe founder Gary Martin Hays. "Through this network of cell phone subscribers, we can all help recover Georgia's kids and return them home safely."

"Without the combined efforts of law enforcement, the broadcasters and emergency management, this program would be ineffective," says Vernon M. Keenan, director of the GBI. "We eagerly welcome the assistance of the private sector in getting the word out to Georgia citizens about missing children, missing adults and/or dangers they may face."

Keep Georgia Safe has a two-pronged approach to crime prevention: 1) Proactive: School Curriculum Initiative and Community Safety Seminars, Web Resources and Media Campaigns 2) Reactive: Alert System Network. As the only organization that sends out all three of Georgia's emergency alerts, the Keep Georgia Safe Wireless Network uses a text platform to notify opt-in wireless subscribers when the GBI issues any of its three emergency alerts:
-- Levi's Call: (Georgia's AMBER Alert) for an abducted or missing child -- Mattie's Call: elderly or disabled missing person alert -- Kimberly's Call: dangerous fugitive alert

Keep Georgia Safe provides the alert service free of charge. Standard text charges, if any, will apply pursuant to the agreement with your cellular provider. To join the network, visit www.keepgeorgiasafe.org and enter your cell phone number. Subscribers will not receive any calls or alerts other than GBI-issued alerts. For more information on Keep Georgia Safe or its alert network, visit www.keepgeorgiasafe.org or call 770.934.8000.

For a photo of the GBI and the Keep Georgia Safe partnership, please click on the following URL: http://www.keepgeorg...rg/kgs_gbi.html

[Jenn]

http://www.kfyrtv.co....asp?news=25877

Missing Persons Policy 

1/12/2009

It`s a terrifying situation when someone you love disappears.

And families who have been in that situation before say it can be frustrating when law enforcement doesn`t help or tries to pass the buck. Supporters of a bill introduced Monday say having a uniform missing persons policy for the state can move the process along more efficiently.

Bismarck Police, with the help of the community spent weeks searching for Edward Martin in the summer of 2005 and eventually found his body in the Missouri River. Supporters of a new bill asking for a uniform missing person procedure say Bismarck has a great policy, but other agencies in the state don`t.

"This legislation is not intended to tie the hands of law enforcement or to make it overly cumbersome. It`s intent is to help individuals and their families answer the inevitable questions when someone goes missing," says Representative Nancy Johnson of Dickinson.

This bill places an immediacy on a missing persons report. A law enforcement agency has to take the report, even though the missing person is an adult, has been missing for less than 24 hours, and may have disappeared from another jurisdiction. That way, no department would be allowed to tell a family that nothing can be done, and it would have to pass that information on to other law enforcement agencies.

"My concern again is having detailed procedures like this as a statute. I just think if this is adopted there would be unintended consequences that would come down to my agency in trying to deal with these issues," says Keith Witt, Bismarck Police Chief.

Instead law enforcement agencies suggest each department should be required to adopt a policy of their own. But lawmakers warn that may not solve the problem but in fact do the very thing this bill wants to avoid, passing the buck to another jurisdiction.

Representative Kim Koppelman says one of his concerns is that if agencies adopt their own policy, they can simply adopt a policy that states they have no policy.

[Jenn]

http://news.mywebpal...ryID=19667&on=1

Stalking Awareness Month

01/13/09

Editor’s note: The woman interviewed for this report asked that her identity not be revealed. Although the stalking incident noted in this report occurred years ago, she continues to live in fear and worries about retribution. For that reason, the defendant’s identity is also withheld.

By TERRY WOLF

Linda is an outgoing young woman. She greets everyone with a charming smile and a cheerful word - including one of her Jeffersonville neighbors.

“He was a little peculiar, kind of a loner,” said Linda, “but, I was nice to him and spoke to him like I would to anyone else. But that was it. I was just friendly and polite to him.”

However, in 1999 the young wife and mother realized the neighbor had misconstrued her congenial personality.

“He was always around,” she recalled. “He knew when I left... he knew when I got home. He would always speak to me but all he’d ever say was ‘hey.’ “

Linda’s fears were confirmed one afternoon when she looked out her front window.

“We noticed he was hiding behind a tree across the road,” she said. “He started doing it more and more, or he would hide behind our family-owned business across the street. He seemed a little slow, but he knew well enough to come up to a point in the yard. Behind that point he was safe, beyond that point and he knew he would have been in trouble.”

Linda went to then Sheriff Doyle Stone to advise him of what going on. However, Stone explained that although the situation was unnerving, nothing illegal had been done.

The stalking escalated. Linda said it became non-stop, until the day she felt her life was in danger.

On one occasion, as Linda arrived at work, the stalker jumped from behind an ice machine and grabbed her as she exited her vehicle.

“He grabbed my arm really hard and told me what he was going to do to me,” said Linda, “and what he described was a sexual assault.”

She wrestled away from her assailant and fled. At that point, she knew it was time to pursue criminal charges. She contacted the sheriff again who called District Attorney Craig Fraser.

“He said let’s take it to court,” Linda said.

In April 2000, Linda’s stalker was convicted of false imprisonment and sexual battery. As part of his sentence, he was banned from Twiggs County for two years.

However in 2004, Linda’s fear returned.

“We were all out in the yard after a dove shoot cleaning birds and lo and behold he came walking down the road like nothing had ever happened,” recalled Linda. “I just fell all to pieces. It was like I was living it all over again.”

Linda continued to see her stalker hovering near her home, watching her at local businesses. “He was making it a point to linger so he would have a second to catch a glimpse of me or to walk by me.”

The stalking continued until Linda moved from Twiggs County. To this day, she says she looks around every corner and in every door wondering if he’s there. She says she doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the feeling of having been threatened and stalked.

Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It.

This January marks the sixth observance of National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM) in the United States. The goal of the annual observance is to increase the public’s understanding of the crime of stalking.

“Stalking is a crime,” said Vonda Darrisaw, Director of the Laurens County Victim Assistance Program. “Victims may not realize that stalking is criminal and what they don’t know about stalking could jeopardize their lives.”

Most people associate stalking with celebrities. Last November, A former contestant on “American Idol,” Paula Goodspeed, who was reportedly obsessed with Paula Abdul, died in an apparent suicide outside the star’s Los Angeles mansion. On Dec., 8, 1980 John Lennon was gunned down by his infamous stalker Mark David Chapman in front of Lennon home.

California passed the country’s first anti-stalking law 1990 in response to murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, the 21-year-old costar of the CBS sitcom “My Sister Sam.” In 1989, Robert John Bardo reportedly obtained Schaeffer’s home address from a private detective he hired. Upon opening her front door, Schaeffer was face-to-face with Bardo, who then shot and killed her.

While fame makes celebrities vulnerable to stalking, celebrity stalking is actually rare. However, in everyday life, the dangerous crime of stalking affects many people. Each year, more than one million women and nearly 400,000 men in the United States are victims of stalking.

This year the theme is “Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It.” It challenges communities, including workplaces, to combat this dangerous crime by learning more about it and taking action.

“People do not always realize what “stalking” entails,” said Darrisaw. “ Your “stalker” is usually someone you know, and very often when a person is stalked at work, that indicates a “ramp up” in potential lethality.”

Darrisaw added that employers should not take “workplace stalking” lightly. A person being followed and called at work is a person in potential danger, as well as the rest of the workplace.

In 1996, a Fayette County woman, Beverley Watson, was repeatedly stalked at her work by her own husband. Coworkers observed Jim Watson’s obsessive behavior with his 33-year-old wife. A year later, the young mother was reported missing. Over two years later, her remains were found in Fulton County. In Watson’s murder trial, prosecutors outlined how he had stalked his wife, intimidating her and threatening her. The victim had even left behind word with friends and her attorney that if something should happen to her, authorities should first look at her own husband.

“Do not “brush off” stalking,” advised Darrisaw. “Take it seriously, whether it is in person or electronic. Keep records and don’t throw away anything that could be evidence. Keep emails and voice mails, or notes from the stalker.

And, don’t be uncomfortable about talking with law enforcement, or the district attorney. Stalking is serious business, and laws have changed considerably across the US to protect victims.”

Georgia’s anti-stalking law defines a stalker as a person who follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person. It is a misdemeanor, until after a second conviction. Then, the offense is considered a felony and is punishable by imprisonment for no less than one year and no more than 10 years.

Aggravated stalking, which is a felony, occurs when the suspect violates a peace bond or restraining or protective order. Aggravated stalking carries the same possible prison sentence and may include a fine up to $10,000.

Georgia law also requires that stalking victims who have provided a landline telephone number are notified when their convicted stalker is released.

For more information visit www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org or call the National Stalking Resource Center at 800-FYI-CALL, or the Laurens County District Attorney’s Victim Assistance Program toll-free at 866-291-9130.

[Jenn]

http://www.indystar....19/1020/LOCAL05

Safeguards sought for missing adults

By Bruce C. Smith
Posted: January 16, 2009

The saga of a confused and elderly Hendricks County man, who wandered Indiana and Ohio before he was found dead, is prompting proposals in the legislature to safeguard missing adults.

The Indiana General Assembly is considering several bills, including two from Hendricks County lawmakers, that would increase training for police officers in coping with endangered adults and create a Silver Alert system to notify the public of a missing adult.

Those proposals could become parts of Senate Bill 307 sponsored by Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, which would create a Silver Alert network to notify the public of a missing and endangered adult. It would be modeled on the national Amber Alert system to get the public's help in finding missing children.

In Senate committee testimony this week, supporters said the bill is needed. Skeptics said too many Silver Alerts would dull the public's attention to pleas for help in locating missing and endangered children and adults.

With the aging population of baby boomers reaching 60 or older, the number of incidents of missing memory-impaired adults is likely to increase, according to Silver Alert proponents.

Experts said about 110,000 Hoosiers are diagnosed with the memory-stealing Alzheimer's disease, and about 60 percent of them would have an incident of wandering away.

"If they aren't found within 24 hours, up to half of those who wander will risk serious injury or death in bad weather, traffic accidents and other causes," said Michael Sullivan of the Alzheimer's Association in Indiana.

That's apparently what happened to Clifford E. "Jack" Obenchain, 91, Pittsboro. He was healthy and showed no signs of memory problems, but his family now suspects he suffered a series of ministrokes.

In December 2007, he was delivering parts and products for an Avon company. On one of his runs on Dec. 3, he made two stops in Indianapolis but never arrived at the third. Police think he kept driving east on I-70 and eventually to Dayton, Ohio.

Over the next two weeks while family and friends searched, he apparently drove the backroads of Indiana and Ohio trying to get home. He was stopped once by a policeman in Ohio for a driving incident with an Amish horse-drawn buggy, but the policeman gave him directions and didn't question the elderly man who was in a company van from another state.

Eventually, Obenchain was found dead in a Jay County creek in Indiana, near the disabled van.

Family members, who testified this week at the Senate's Health and Provider Services Committee hearing Miller's bill, consider themselves lucky to at least have found their grandfather.

"Some other families never find an answer," said Nancy Bay-Boggs, Brownsburg.

She still has other questions. What if the public could have been notified in a timely way that Obenchain was missing? What if the police officer had noticed something odd before giving him directions and letting him drive away?

"After Grandpa died, we asked the legislators from our area if something more could be done so this wouldn't happen to other people and their families," Bray-Boggs said.

Rep. Philip Boots, R-Crawfordsville, who represents western Hendricks County, will propose a Silver Alert bill in the House. Miller has invited him to join in her proposal.

Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, filed SB 247 that would require more training for police officers to spot an endangered adult even when trouble might not be apparent.

Lawson said her proposal would add a few words to the existing law on the training of police officers at law enforcement academies in the state.
• Call Star reporter Bruce C. Smith at (317) 444-2803.

[Jenn]

http://mississauga.com/article/23373

Wife never stopped looking for missing husband

Michigan State and Peel Regional Police announced Friday they had identified the remains of missing Mississauga man Steve Hudson.

By: John Stewart

January 26, 2009 09:15 AM - The determination shown by Steve Hudson's common-law wife, who spread the news of his disappearance far and wide, is one of the reasons forensic investigators in Michigan were able to identify the missing Mississauga man's body.

Michigan State and Peel Regional Police announced Friday they had identified Hudson's remains, His body had washed up last May in Michigan, almost directly across the water from the spot where Hudson's abandoned vehicle was found in Amherstburg, Ont. just over a year ago.

A Michigan State trooper named Sarah Krebs, an artist who specializes in drawing missing persons from forensic evidence, solved the mystery after she visited a website and saw a photo of Hudson that eerily matched a likeness she had created. Her drawing was a reconstruction done using computer technology and the skull of the unknown body that washed up in Michigan.

“I recognized him right away,” Krebs said in a story published in The Windsor Star. “Then I started to read the details ... where his car was abandoned, the clothes he left in.”

Those clothes were a significant detail in confirming the identity.

“He had pretty decent clothing on at the time we found the body,” Krebs told The Windsor Star. “He had brand name jeans, brand name shoes. Something we wouldn’t expect out of somebody that had gone missing for so long. Usually, someone missing that long, it’s a case of a homeless person where nobody’s really looking for them."

Krebs said that Hudson's partner, Agata Mirowska, is the one who really led to the identification because of her diligence in posting information about him on a website, on Facebook and on YouTube.

“Without her persistence that his face be seen, I don’t think it would have been solved,” Krebs told The Windsor Star. “She was very vigilant in getting the word out there. I could tell that she’d really been looking for him for a long time. It goes to show you that people doing this stuff at home can really solve crimes.”

A week before Hudson's body was found, Mirowska told The News that she still remembered every detail of the day she last saw him in the home they shared in Mississauga, near Winston Churchill Blvd. and Dundas St. W.

The couple would have celebrated their fourth anniversary that April and had just returned from a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
“Steve was not the kind of guy who would walk away from his family and his life,” Mirowska said.

In her own efforts to locate Hudson, 36, Mirowska spent hours contacting area churches and homeless shelters in case he’d become disoriented and wandered in.

She set up a Facebook page called Steve is Missing, posting numerous photos of Hudson. She also wrote a blog to keep people informed of developments.

In a message posted Saturday on her blog, Mirowska says, "I'm sorry to report this news, but the police had ID'd Steve's body. He was found in Michigan in the river and they don't suspect any foul play. Myself and all his family and friends are understandably upset with the news, but at least we have some answers now. Thank you all for the continuing support."

Police don't know if foul play was involved. Because Hudson's body was decomposed, it was impossible to tell if he had suffered any injury.

[Jenn]

http://www.nwfdailyn...locke_hale.html

Searchers: Dogs key in finding missing body

January 27, 2009 - 3:36 PM
Robbyn Brooks
Daily News

The human remains that could belong to 82-year-old Colin Hale were found less than two hours after searchers began their hunt Saturday morning.

The discovery, although grim, is one more that can be attributed to the help of the Southwest Panhandle Search and Rescue K9/Emotional Response Team based out of Molino, Fla.

"There are so many people out there that deserve to be found," said Nancy Locke with SWPANSAR. "I don't care if they are 80 something. They are still somebody's children and we want to bring them home."

Locke said SWPANSAR was approached by the Walton County Sheriff's Office last Wednesday about leading a search to find Hale, a missing Alzheimer's patient in Sandestin. The team spent about 100 hours planning for the actual search that happened Saturday.

But the planning paid off, Locke said. Vision, a 3 year-old cadaver dog, alerted on a portion of human remains shortly after the team began their daunting task. Searchers then crawled on their hands and knees through a thick brushy area with thorns, Locke said. That's where they found what could be Hale's remains.

Hale disappeared from a senior living facility in July after mentioning he was going to see his parents, both of whom were deceased and had never lived in the United States.

Locke feels if a professional search and rescue team had been called immediately, Hale might have been found alive.

"They had to crawl to him," Locke said. "Four-wheelers would have never found him."

Some of the people involved with SWPANSAR have been in search and rescue for close to 10 years. However, the group formed their own organization a year ago Monday so they could operate as a not-for-profit.

Since that time, the search team has helped in three successful rescues and at least 10 recoveries. Vision and her K-9 handler Jen Morgan helped in several of those finds, including the water recovery of Allan and Roy Ramey who drowned in a Walton County lake in March 2008. She also worked in the recovery process of the four children believed to have been thrown from a bridge in Daphne, Ala.

The group even made the grisly discovery of 21-year-old Briana Parrish's body at a sewage treatment plant in Daphne.

"That was hard," Locke admitted, adding Parrish's family was searching with the group that came upon her body. "Our job doesn't stop with the recovery. We are there as long as we're needed to help in whatever way we can."

As a not-for-profit organization, SWPANSAR depends on sponsorships and donations. Visit their Web site at www.swpansar.org to find out how you can help.

[Jenn]

http://www.kgwn.tv/s...x?ID=1515&Cat=2

New Technology Helps Identify Missing People

Cheyenne - 2/3/2009

A new type of technology is coming to Wyoming, enabling police to identify missing people within seconds.

"The Child Program" is a retinal scan, primarily used to identify missing children.

This new, bio-metric technology will also help police identify Alzheimer's patients who have wandered away, in addition to disguised criminals.

The device painlessly scans the iris and is more accurate than fingerprints, giving the police virtually immediate results.

"An officer can take a picture of their eyes and have the immediate identification of that individual so we can get them reunited with their loved ones," said Sheriff Jim Pond of the Albany County Sheriff's Department.

Wyoming is the 40th state to become a part of "The Child Program," adding to the nation's chances of finding missing people throughout the country.

[Jenn]

http://www.thesudbur....aspx?e=1437925

Remembering lost loved ones
'Now, she will never come back to us'

Posted By ANGELA SCAPPATURA, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 3 hours ago


On Saturday, a group of women and children gathered at the University of Sudbury to honour the hundreds of indigenous women murdered or missing in Canada.

Standing behind a table adorned with photos, pamphlets and candles, Marjorie Beaudry talked about the death of her 15-year-old niece.

She held up a framed, black and white photo of the girl and said her young family member is just one of the First Nations women who have never returned home.

Her niece, Mona Redbreast, was in the care of the Children's Aid Society nearly 10 years ago when she was killed while driving a stolen car to her home in Sudbury.

"She was so beautiful, she wanted to be a model," said Beaudry, a fourth year Laurentian University student. "Now, she will never come back to us.

"It's government policy that confined her to that."

It is important to understand the root of problems First Nations women face and create discussion on how they can protect themselves, said Beaudry.

The day of awareness is important to bring attention to the way Indigenous women in Canada are treated, she added.

"There are aboriginal women missing, murdered and unaccounted for. Canada should take up the issue and the cause of finding these women," she said. "It's a legacy of genocide and colonization and it has been happening since the arrival of the westerners.

"These women have to be accounted for."

Grand Council Chief John Beaucage said a major problem is law enforcement does not take complaints of missing First Nations women seriously.

[Kelly]

http://www.modbee.co...ory/752638.html
Help for victims' families might vanish
By Jeff Jardine
Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009

A poster last year offering a $10,000 reward in the disappearance of a 33-year-old woman from Thief River Falls, Minn., caught Tracy Mayo's eye.

Thief River Falls is less than 150 miles from Mayo's home in Fargo, N.D., which, in the northern Great Plains, makes it a close neighbor. But what really grabbed Mayo's eye was that the Carole Sund-Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation of Modesto put up the money.

"It's just amazing that their arms have reached out and touched people all over the nation," Mayo said. The same foundation offered a $5,000 reward when Mayo's mother, 64-year-old Nita Mayo of Nevada, vanished from the Donnell Vista Point in the Sierra Nevada east of Sonora in August 2005.
     
But unless a miracle occurs by Friday, an organization that has aided victims' families in 48 states will become a victim itself - of changing lives, changing times and a faltering economy.

The Sund-Carrington foundation's executive board will vote on whether to dissolve the decade-old nonprofit that helps families deal with the angst and horrendous grief of having a loved one disappear, while keeping missing persons cases in the public's eye.

Founders Francis and Carole Carrington of Eureka recently told directors they will no longer continue to help fund the foundation. They are retiring and will move to southern Nevada. The Carringtons are well into their 70s, and their business interests -- which include shopping centers - have felt the bite of the recession.

"We're very proud of what we've done," Francis Carrington said. "It's been a glorious 10 years. We've done a lot of good. (But) between age and the economy and moving and 10 different other things, it's just time."

Several months ago, the foundation began developing a strategic plan to fund itself without so much reliance upon the Carringtons' generosity.

"But now that we've lost our benefactor, we'd need money well before the plan would have been successful," said board chairman Philip Trompetter, who agreed two days ago to delay the vote by a week. This gives executive director Scott Webb a week to crunch more numbers and present a plan that would keep the foundation afloat through September.

"I think the writing's on the wall," Trompetter said. "Unless someone steps up, my expectation is that (Friday) we would initiate the dissolution process."

Nonprofits and charities everywhere are hurting because of the recession, so now is not the best time to expand fund-raising efforts. Major cases such as the murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy will compel people to contribute, Webb said. But there is an inherent risk in asking for donations during such grim times.

"It's very difficult identifying how to do that respectfully," he said. "You don't want to use such a horrendous situation to raise money. We're not like the Red Cross, which can raise money for hurricane relief during a hurricane."

The Carringtons contributed nearly half of the foundation's $249,165 income in fiscal 2008-09. The foundation has more than $250,000 in outstanding reward offers, though some expire after six months and only about 8 percent is ever claimed.

They formed the foundation in Modesto just weeks after the bodies of daughter Carole Sund, granddaughter Juli Sund and family friend Silvina Pelosso of Argentina were found in the Sierra Nevada and foothills after the trio disappeared during a sightseeing trip to Yosemite in February 1999.

"We didn't know what to do when we had our case," Francis Carrington said. "I had to self-educate. I learned I could post a reward and get things done. I learned more from the press than anybody else. When (law enforcement) had a press conference, I would not talk to anyone. But I watched the press question law enforcement and put it right to 'em. I could see where we had to get the message out. You have to get out and fight more and more."

He recognized the need to be out in front, to draw more media attention to the case while hope remained.

In the aftermath, the Carringtons realized others could benefit from what they had learned.

They created the foundation even before Cary Stayner was arrested and charged with the killings, along with the murder of Yosemite naturalist Joie Armstrong. Stayner was convicted and is on San Quentin's death row.

The Carringtons hired Kim Petersen, who had been a volunteer with the search effort, and she ran the foundation for eight years.

"When I started there, I gave up a career as an elementary school teacher to take on something brand new," Petersen said. "I knew nothing about it and had a fund with only $250,000 in it. It was a very scary step."

Two major cases propelled the foundation into the national spotlight: the disappearances of Modesto resident Chandra Levy in Washington, D.C., in spring 2001 and Laci Peterson in Modesto on Christmas Eve 2002. In both cases, the families turned to Kim Petersen and the foundation for help as they searched for their loved ones and after it was determined both women were murdered.

"They stepped in and helped me where most people are on their own," said Susan Levy, Chandra Levy's mother. "They provided a wonderful service."

Levy and her husband, Robert, held daily news conferences and appeared on numerous network and cable TV shows. The national media seized upon the story because of Chandra Levy's relationship with then-U.S. Rep. Gary Condit. Police never considered him a suspect, and an El Salvadoran immigrant has since been charged with her murder.

Likewise, Petersen aided Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mom, and other family members, urging them to meet with the media during the search for the 27-year-old, who was expecting her first child.

Laci's disappearance almost overnight became a major national story. Like so many others, it ended in tragedy. Her husband, Scott, was charged with killing Laci and unborn son, Conner.

"Her other important role was as a liaison between law enforcement and the victims," Rocha said of Kim Petersen. "Prior to this happening, I'd never really had any experience with law enforcement. Kim took the time to explain things, the procedures and processes. The police couldn't tell us much, and I was in the dark about everything. That's why it was so important to have her there."

A jury convicted Scott Peterson of murder, and he joined Stayner on San Quentin's death row.

The job exacted an emotional and physical toll on Petersen. She left in 2007.

"You put so much into it that it hurts you," Francis Carrington said. "Kim was just wonderful."

Webb took over as executive director in November 2007, overseeing a staff of four employees. In its 10-year history, the Sund-Carrington Foundation has paid out 47 rewards totaling $250,000 in 48 states, he said.

It's been an effective and necessary organization, but too reliant upon the Carringtons' checkbook.

(The Carringtons have) done their share to help," Susan Levy said. "Out of their own pain, they've allowed others to be a little stronger."

[Kelly]

http://www.austinchr...?oid=oid:803291

Missing in Austin

7/3/09
BY JORDAN SMITH



If there's one piece of advice that Detectives James Scott and David Gann, the APD's two-man missing persons unit, could offer parents, it's this: Get to know your kids. Really. Like, who they hang out with. The bulk of the nearly 4,000 cases the team works each year involve juveniles – more than 75% last year – and the vast majority of those involve runaway kids. And that's why knowing your child is extremely important. "I'd say, in 80% of our runaways, the parents can't name, by name, a friend of their child," says Scott, a 15-year department veteran.

"Not one," echoes Gann, who's been with the department 27 years. "I had one the other day. I asked [the parents] for a photo, this was their response: 'Well, where do you expect me to get that?'"

Personal information is king when working a missing person's case because it helps investigators determine, as quickly as possible, whether a person is in danger or whether they've simply walked off the grid. Most people that go missing simply do leave of their own accord – they run away, drop out, and start a new life. Still, a smaller number, roughly 3% of all cases, Scott estimates, involve true abductions – where a person is physically taken against his or her will. Most difficult for investigators, perhaps, is determining whether a person has left voluntarily. "In other words, you see somebody forcing someone into a car, and they're obviously going unwillingly, that's an abduction," says Scott. "When somebody goes to the store and they just don't come back, that's not an abduction. That's an unexplained disappearance, but that's where we start looking at consistency of behavior." And that's also what makes working missing persons cases so different. "That's one of the ways it's different than other cases: You're actually starting with nothing and trying to track it backwards, as opposed to, I've got the crime scene and now I have to figure out where the bad guy went," says Gann.

Despite the difficulties working missing persons cases, however, police boast a fairly high clearance rate: In 2008, according to APD, investigators cleared and closed 96.1% of their caseload. But still, each year, there are the cases that can't be cleared, that remain unsolved, and, like that of Roxanne Paltauf, that haunt investigators who are determined to find answers.

[Jenn]

http://www.thestar.c.../article/688318

Facebook used more to find missing kids

Aug 29, 2009 11:49 AM
Michael Oliveira
THE CANADIAN PRESS

When 19-year-old William Hood seemingly went missing earlier this summer in Toronto and hadn't contacted anyone in his family for weeks, his mom, a police dispatcher from London, Ont., knew exactly what to do.

She went on Facebook.

Online social networking sites are increasingly being used to complement police investigations into missing person reports, and Facebook is filled with stories of families seized by unimaginable grief.

This week, Child Find Manitoba turned to Facebook to help in the search for missing children Abby and Dominic Maryk, who disappeared more than a year ago and may have been abducted by their biological father.

"Our goal is to use as many means as possible to get the faces of these children in front of as wide an audience as possible," said Christy Dzikowicz, the organization's director, in a statement.

The Missing Children Society of Canada doesn't go out of its way to recommend that Facebook be used in the search for loved ones, but often finds that going online is among the first things many families do, said spokeswoman Marilyne Aalhus.

Pages devoted to missing people are plastered across Facebook, but among the sad eulogies for loved ones who have never been found, there are some hopeful stories with happy endings.

The London dispatcher – 42-year-old Deanna Rawn – logged on to Facebook after her son William, who had moved to Toronto for school, stopped returning calls and emails.

First she sounded a warning shot, and posted a message on her profile and on his wall saying she was very worried and would be calling police if she didn't hear from him soon.

Hours passed with no reply. As she picked up the phone to call police, she also logged back on to Facebook and posted the digital equivalent of a "missing" poster.

"MISSING: (my son) William James Hood - DOB: Nov 8 1989 (19 yrs), 6'2", 125-130 lbs, slender build. Hazel eyes, brownish/dirty blonde hair, worn shaggy. Last seen July 8th 2009 in his apartment on Kane Ave in Toronto. ANYONE with information, please call me,`` read the plea from Rawn."

The message was time-stamped July 29, 4:03 p.m.

Twenty-six minutes later, her son replied.

"Hey mom. LONG story short, I'm ok. I'm not in T.O. any more. I have just been practically living under a rock in terms of technology. I don't have a phone or anything like that, but I will try to call your cell ASAP."

The teen had strayed a few hours north of the city looking for work but hadn't relayed that information back to his worried family.

"Like most teenagers, when they start out on their own they want to think they can do it all without any help from their families, and he wanted to be back on his feet before he let anyone know where he was," Rawn explained.

"With youth nowadays Facebook is an addiction for them, they all go on it, they all have friends (on it) and I figured even if he wasn't still going on it because he (didn't have Internet access), maybe one of his friends would hear where he was."

"It was a great relief that within a couple of hours of it being posted on Facebook he had contacted me."

When 38-year-old Richard Hayward of Brantford, Ont., disappeared last year without warning, his family also turned to Facebook, and pleaded with his friends and acquaintances for any information about what happened to him.

Days, weeks and months passed with no news, just expressions of sadness and support from well-wishers.

Then one day, about eight months after the first plea for information was posted by Hayward's sister, good news emerged about Hayward getting back in touch.

But for every happy story about reunited families, Facebook is many more sad memorials for missing people who have never been found.

Twenty-one-year-old Dylan Koshman of Edmonton has been missing since Oct. 10th, 2008, but his family and friends have not given up hope and continue to gather on Facebook to exchange messages of support and wait for news.

Koshman left his apartment after an argument with a roommate and has not been seen since. Although the site has contributed few solid leads, Koshman's family credits Facebook with helping to quickly let people know about his disappearance.

"Facebook was definitely a great tool to have it connect us with all our friends and family immediately," said Koshman's sister, Tara.

"We set up a page almost immediately to try to get the word out, it was a utility for friends and family to go and see what we were doing, where they could join if they wanted to volunteer and what was going on."

Still, there are drawbacks to posting appeals for help on Facebook, as the family of murdered eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford of Woodstock, Ont., learned.

The site was great for spreading the word about her disappearance and co-ordinating public searches, but it also became a forum for unsubstantiated rumour-mongering and slandering of the girl's parents as the police investigation dragged on.

"It definitely helped to raise awareness but there's definitely pros and cons with it," said Rebecca Stafford, the girl's aunt who started the Facebook page.

"You had people that were venting their anger about the situation there and you almost had a pack mentality forming ... sometimes we were worried that there might be some form of lynch mob forming or something to that effect."

Despite the potential drawbacks, Koshman said she'll continue to use Facebook in the search for her brother until her family finally gets closure. Since Koshman's body has never been found, the family is still hoping for a miracle.

"It definitely keeps our hopes alive that he might be out there, maybe he had some amnesia or something; and if he is gone, at least we can find him," she said.

"It's good to get his picture out there, hopefully somebody out there will be able to recognize him."

 

[Kelly]

http://www.newschann...hereabouts.html

Mystery Solved: Volunteers Given Credit

October 16, 2009 5:35 PM
John Pless

If it weren't for a couple dozen tireless people who volunteered their time no one would have ever found the remains of a woman who disappeared 53 years ago.

The whereabouts of Kathleen Wrinkle tormented her family for decades. Friday those volunteers got a special "thank you" for finally unlocking the mystery. They include police officers, firefighters along with search and dive teams from west Polk, Bradley and Hamilton counties.

Many of you will recall our coverage of the search for Wrinkle that began two years ago in Polk County's Parksville Lake. Volunteers eventually found her remains.

Tennessee House of Representatives Speaker Kent Williams said "on behalf of the State of Tennessee I would like to offer our condolences to the family."

With that, Speaker Williams then gave the state's official thank you's to the people who never gave up on solving the mystery in the form of a proclamation authored by Representative Eric Watson. They helped find the remains of Wrinkle, who was 26-years-old when she left her room mate and niece, Evelyn Wrinkle-Cross, one morning to look for a new job.

"I wanted to skip school and go with her and she said no and she left before I got up," Cross said.

It was the early morning of February 22, 1956 when Wrinkle was traveling east on Highway 64 which at that time was along the banks of Parksville Lake. For some still unknown reason her car went off the embankment and into the water. Wrinkle could not get out of her 1951 Chevy Bel Air that sank to the bottom of the deep lake.

It seemed like she would be lost forever, without a trace.

But three years ago a cousin of Ms. Wrinkle in Texas used the internet in a desperate final effort to unlock the mystery.

"It all started from an e-mail," according to Cleveland Daily Banner reporter Greg Kaylor.

Kaylor got one of those e-mails. Before then, he never heard of Kathleen Wrinkle.

"When I saw it was a Cleveland case I got it opened up, started doing a little research and we started figuring some things out," Kaylor said.

Kaylor got his law enforcement contacts to begin a search in Parksville Lake in 2007. They found plenty of abandoned cars and other junk, but no Chevy Bel Air. A year later Volunteer State Water Rescue divers found Wrinkle's car and a few scant human remains that were identified as being hers.

"I just sat there and cried, it was all I could do," Cross said of her reaction to the phone call.

Volunteer State Water Rescue team members and brothers Shane and Shawn Ashley found the remains.

"Very special to be part of that, the finding and helping recover her remains, very special project," Shawn Ashley said.

During our chat with Cross after Friday's ceremony she shared a secret she kept through the years.

"And when she died I started leaving the light on, and when they found her I turned the light off," Cross said tearfully. "I had two husbands who thought I was afraid of the dark and I never told them why the light was on, but I wasn't afraid of the dark, it was just in case she came home."

Kathleen Wrinkle's remains were laid to rest near her parents this year -- 53 years after she disappeared.

[Denise Harrison]

http://blog.clevelan...iders_miss.html

Cuyahoga County considers missing persons unit

By Laura Johnston, The Plain Dealer
November 12, 2009, 12:54PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In the wake of the Imperial Avenue stranglings, Cuyahoga County officials are considering tactics to more easily find missing people.


County Administrator Jim McCafferty said at today's commissioners' meeting that he and Sheriff Bob Reid have had preliminary discussions about creating a database of missing persons or forming a missing persons unit.

The discussions come two weeks after police found bodies at Anthony Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue on the east side of Cleveland. So far, 10 of 11 victims have been identified, all women, many of them strangled.

Most of the victims battled drug addiction, and some had been missing for days or longer. Police believe Sowell lured them into his home by offering them liquor or drugs.

Commissioner Tim Hagan said he would encourage the sheriff to meet with local police chiefs to make a concerted effort to track down Clevelanders who go missing.

"There seems to be some kind of breakdown here," Hagan said. "We want to be as supportive as we can."

[Denise Harrison]

http://www.newsnet5....236/detail.html

Panel To Review Response To Cleveland Missing Person Cases

POSTED: 7:30 am EST December 10, 2009

CLEVELAND -- Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has appointed a commission to review police policies for handling sexual assault and missing-person reports.

Some relatives of the 11 women whose remains turned up at the home of registered sex offender Anthony Sowell complained about police handling of missing-person reports. Police say some victims were never reported missing.

The commission does not plan to look into the Sowell case.

Sowell has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the deaths of the women. Yesterday, he agreed to let police fence off his house with barbed wire to preserve evidence. He also waived his right to a speedy trial to accommodate his new defense team.