Some Missing Don't Want To Be Found
Kenneth Dean is a staff writer for the Tyler Paper.
A mother walks outside to check on her young child in the family backyard and the child is not there. She frantically makes a 911 call and police immediately swarm to the scene. Their goal is to find the child as quickly as possible.
Whether it's a toddler who wandered away from its mother in a crowded mall or an adult not heard from in days - they are missing and those who love them suffer agonizing pain until they are found.
Thursday morning authorities were able to reunite an 11-year-old girl with her parents after she was found near a creek bed north of Lindale. The girl, who, according to family members suffers from autism, had spent the night in the cold. There was jubilation among the officials searching for her when one rescuer said "We have the girl and she's OK."
Every day across America, family members and friends file missing person reports and some call their local newspaper or television station to spread the news.
Since beginning this career, I have worked many missing person cases, some unsolved and others ended before I arrived on the scene.
On any given day, there are as many as 100,000 active missing person cases in the United States, according to the Department of Justice. Every year, thousands of others vanish under suspicious circumstances.
However, many of the missing simply choose to leave their families and disappear.
Tyler Police Department Public Information Officer Don Martin said his department currently has 63 active missing person cases, including 17 adults and 46 juveniles. The majority of those juvenile cases are believed to be runaways and not children who have been abducted. Of the adults, many are thought to have left behind their lives to start over.
"As soon as we begin working a case of a missing person we put them into the NCIC system (National Crime Information Center) to get their information to other areas," he said.
Detectives begin interviewing family members and friends as they search for clues leading to the missing person.
Many times an adult will leave a spouse and not talk to them for days.
Martin said once police find the person and can verify the person is OK then they are taken out of the system.
"There are some people who really don't want to be found," he said. "As far as the juveniles they might think things are too rough and they're upset and they run away. Most are located in a few days, but some are not.
Smith County Sheriff Lt. Larry Wiginton pointed to a recent case where the family of Smith County man reported him missing and feared he had been killed over a drug debt.
"We found him in the city limits and he just didn't want to talk to his family or be found," he said. "His family didn't know he left on his own so that makes it harder for them."
Martin said people often want police to issue Amber Alerts or Silver Alerts for their missing loved ones, but he said there are certain criteria that have to be met before they can be activated. There are critical missing such as young children, people with medical problems or elderly people.
"We just can't put out an Amber Alert," he said. "Each case has to meet the criteria and if someone has run away then that doesn't fit the guidelines," he said.
Wiginton was part of the search for the Lindale girl Thursday and said that when she was found one group began singing Amazing Grace.
"When they found her and said she was alive and crying it was a relief for everybody and we're human beings just like everyone else. Everyone was thrilled and some were even crying. Most of us have kids of our own so we know how it would feel if it were our child," he said.
But authorities say not every case has a happy ending.
"Sometimes we can't find their loved one because we have nothing to go on and sometimes that is because the person just does not want to be found," Wiginton said. "If we do find them and they left on their own accord we can't make them contact the other party."
Kenneth Dean is a staff writer for the Tyler Paper.
Kenneth Dean is a staff writer for the Tyler Paper.
FAQ
Search Forums
Log in
Register
