The Last Place You'd Look by Carole Moore Read Free Book Online

persons reported missing and entered into the system each year is staggering, most are found and the cases cleared. What changes that numbers game is the missing persons—adults and runaways for the most part—who are either not reported at all or for whom police refuse to take reports. No one knows how many people are missing and unaccounted for in an official capacity because no records are made or kept, but it is estimated that the numbers run into the thousands each year.
    While missing children always bring out the neighborhood, missing adults, without clear-cut evidence of foul play, remain a low and sometimes nonexistent priority for police agencies.
    “Unfortunately, many police are not trained properly or at all to deal with this type of incident,” says Bill.
    He calls on department heads—chiefs of police and sheriffs—to do some soul-searching and think about what time, resources, staff, and budget dollars they would expend if a family reported that their adult son or daughter had not been in contact with them for more than twenty-four hours.
    “My bet is that most of you, depending on the circumstances, would tell the family that he or she is an adult and is free to do what they please and there is no current law against it,” he says.
    Families, as he points out, do not care about budgets and personnel, because they don’t understand that point of view. They are about one thing: finding their lost loved one. And because of this, the former marshal says, “it is the duty of the department head to ensure that the family is aware of what level the agency is going to investigate this missing persons case.”
    Bill wants law enforcement agencies to take it personally. He says investigators owe it to families to be as forthcoming as possible with them, including sharing information whenever possible. “If searches are planned, no matter how small, the family should be notified and given the opportunity to be present. If media contact is going to be initiated by police, meet with the family first to discuss information that will be provided to them so [that the families] do not learn something new about the investigation by reading the paper or watching television,” he says.
    He touches on a sore subject among many families of the missing: it is not unusual for families to find out about the progress of an investigation—or even that a body has been found or an arrest made—through the media, either by hearing it on television or from a media inquiry. No parent wants to receive a telephone call that an adult child has been found deceased—but it becomes even worse when that call comes from some local news reporter trying to make a deadline.
    Bill reaches into his deep law enforcement background as well as his role as a bereaved father to recommend that law enforcement agencies implement a two-pronged approach to missing persons investigations. He says departments should first appoint an officer to act as the contact liaison with the agency, while families should do the same by designating a family contact person. That way, both news and questions can be passed along without duplication and with reduced confusion.
    Although the amount of time and manpower a department can dedicate to a missing persons investigation varies from agency to agency, Bill urges agency heads to keep families in the loop and make certain that liaisons stay in regular contact with them. If, for example, an agency decides to suspend its search for an individual or the investigation into his or her disappearance, Bill says the family has a right to know this.
    “Nothing is worse than thinking that the police are actively trying to investigate the incident and then learn . . . the case is dormant,” he says.
    He believes that although police must walk a fine line in deciding what to share and what not to share, it is important to make families feel they are part of the effort to find their loved one.
    “My son was found drowned in