Missing children who might be alive

 When news broke in 2009 that a 29 year old woman named Jaycee Dugard had been found alive after being missing since she was 11, I thought it was wonderful. I also thought it was a fluke. When it comes to missing children, we are always told that they die within about 72 hours of going missing. Everyone tells me that “statistically” they do. I have not found solid statistics about this, though. 

Four years later in 2013, three young women were rescued from their abductor’s home in Cleveland. Just like Jaycee, they were all assumed to be dead. Their rescue was major news, because it was three of them instead of just one. The Cleveland abductions were what led me to discover several more individuals who were found alive after being missing for a considerable period of time. Some examples are Shawn Hornbeck, who was missing for over four years when found alive; Elizabeth Smart, missing for 9 months; Steven Stayner, missing for 7 years when found alive, but later killed in an accident; And Cleo Smith, who was missing a little over two weeks. 

All of the people who were abducted as children and found alive were held captive in the homes of random individuals. They were all brainwashed, abused, and most of them were forced to change their names. They all hid in plain sight, and I don’t believe any of them looked anything like their age progression photos released by NCMEC. Since law enforcement can’t search people’s homes without probable cause and a warrant, it can be easy for any random person to hide a person they abducted in their homes. Thus, I do not believe that we shouldn’t quickly assume that a missing child is dead within a short period of time. 

Once, I saw a comment on an article from a woman saying, “The police should search every single house until the child is found!” Good idea in theory! But it’s not only unconstitutional, it’s a logistical nightmare. Sometimes I wonder if the police push the idea that a missing person is dead so quickly because it’s nearly impossible to look in people’s homes. Even though I have never seen statistics that show most missing kids are dead within 72 hours, I am welcome to anyone showing me a link in the comments. You can also write a blog post of your own with the links there and then let me know so I can go read it. I am always learning! I do believe the statistics, I just have never seen them. (I’ve only heard others talk about them). I also know that when it comes to statistics, they don’t matter to you much if you are in the 1% or less. If 99% of people who went missing are dead, and you are the 1% who isn’t, then would you want people only looking for you in places where a body can be found such as in water or underground? Would you want them holding a funeral for you? 

Learning about all the people that have been found alive after years or even decades of being missing have made me scrutinize cases of people currently missing who actually could still be alive. A while back, I wanted to blog about each and every case, but there were just too many of them. I kept learning about more and more people who vanished without a trace. I decided to leave that sort of thing up to the talented podcasters that feature individual stories. I also started to feel like if someone was found alive and I hadn’t blogged about their individual story yet, then I would have felt disappointed that I didn’t “predict” it, and that isn’t the point. My point with saying a lot of missing people might be alive is just to keep hope alive way more than it already is. I also felt like if I blogged each individual story, and the person was found deceased, then some haters would use that as proof that all the people I blogged about were actually dead. 

In the book Hope, which was written by two of the survivors of the Cleveland abductions, Amanda Berry remembers watching news stories of people digging to find her body and wanting to scream through the tv that she was right there. That is a scenario which I can’t imagine. Criminals make false confessions all the time, for different reasons. Amanda didn’t realize that, and in the end, she rescued herself by escaping. 

Essentially, escaping is what needs to happen in the vast majority of cases where long missing people are held captive in random homes. This doesn’t sound like a monumental task, but it can be. They fear their abductors, they may have been forced to assume new identities, the public wouldn’t recognize them, and even if they did recognize them they have been conditioned to believe the person is dead so would likely not believe the person trying to escape. Attempts by long missing individuals have been written off as pranks in the past. Mikelle Biggs, who is still missing, wrote her name on a dollar bill, and it was determined to be a prank (even though it could have been legit). Anthonette Cayedito, who is still missing, literally called the Gallup, NM police a year after she was abducted to tell them she was in Albuquerque. The call was determined to be a prank even though her own mother swore it was her. 

The pranks do happen. When Polly Klaas went missing, some kids called her father pretending to be her. Polly was murdered, but the calls were taken seriously, and I think the effect of these calls are what has been seared in the consciousness of society, resulting in other attempts not being taken seriously. I think it’s important to let that go. Take all attempts to reach out seriously. Even if they can’t be traced, at least the person may get word that they are believed, and will try again. In fact, if you ever listen to Amanda Berry’s 911 call, it doesn’t sound legit at all. The operator even hung up on her. 

While all kids who went missing as older kids and later found alive were being held captive in random people’s homes, all children kidnapped as infants who were found alive had been taken by women faking pregnancies. The cases I followed the most were Zephany Nurse, Kamiyah Mobley, and Carlina White. However, in a lot of cases of missing infants, the focus is so heavily on the parents that it would be easy for an abductor to hide the baby in plain sight as long as a legitimate-passing birth certificate can be obtained. 

In fact, in most missing child cases, the focus is so heavily on one single suspect (likely the parents) that the real abductor is nowhere near anyone’s radar. This happened when Jayme Closs rescued herself. She had been kidnapped and taken to a town called Gordon, Wisconsin. In a press conference, the sheriff was asked, “Was Gordon on your radar?” The sheriff shook his head no and said, “Gordon was not on our radar.” There were no suspects in Jayme’s case, except (in the eyes of some) Jayme herself, but “Gordon” would have been further from everyone’s mind if there was one. 

There are a few things we can do as a society to help living victims who are missing persons to escape and/or make themselves known. The first is to believe that a lot more of them are actually alive than what law enforcement agencies would have us believe. The second is to take all attempts by them to reach out to society seriously, even if they can’t be traced. If the missing person sees that they are believed, then they are likely to try again. The third is to not have all of our focus on one single suspect, whether it’s the parent(s) or not. This just makes it easier for the real perpetrator(s) to hide the victim in plain sight. 

If I could pick a motto for the new year, it would be “May many missing people be found alive in 2025.”