insearchofthemissing's podcast

Vanessa Lopez with the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department will speak to us about Human Sex Trafficking. Find out if your children are at risk and what can be done. (FBI) Human sex trafficking is the most common form of modern-day slavery. Estimates place the number of its domestic and international victims in the millions, mostly females and children enslaved in the commercial sex industry for little or no money.1 The terms human trafficking and sex slavery usually conjure up images of young girls beaten and abused in faraway places, like Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa. Actually, human sex trafficking and sex slavery happen locally in cities and towns, both large and small, throughout the United States, right in citizens’ backyards. Appreciating the magnitude of the problem requires first understanding what the issue is and what it is not. Additionally, people must be able to identify the victim in common trafficking situations.  

MISSING AND ABUSED CHILDREN: What would you do if your child went missing? What would you expect law enforcement to do? Where else can you turn? Every year more than 4000,000 children go missing just in the United States. Some run away, other are abducted and other are lured away by strangers. You may not be aware there is an organization that will asset you in locating your child and work with law enforcement. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has been assisting families and law enforcement for more than 30 years. During the last 31 years, NCMEC’s national toll-free hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST® (1-800-843-5678), has received more than 4 million calls. NCMEC has circulated billions of photos of missing children, assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 211,000 missing children and facilitated training for more than 314,000 law enforcement, criminal/juvenile justice and healthcare professionals. NCMEC’s Team HOPE volunteers have provided resources and emotional support to more than 53,000 families of missing and exploited children. In todays program we will be speaking with Ashley Rodriguez, Senior Forensic Case Specialist with NCMEC and learn with their organization does and the information they can provide to help keep your children safe.

In this Podcast we will highlight two missing person cases, Ashley Higgins missing 32 years from Costa Mesa, California, and Krystie Stuart from Lucerne Valley, California, last seen March 3, 2015. First we had the honor to attend the “Identify the Missing” event hosted by the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s office in Orange County, California. The event connected family members of missing persons with government and private agencies to assist in locating their loved ones. DNA was collected from about 50 family members and will be entered into the national database to search the unidentified persons files. The event was a great success and family members thanked everyone for hosting the event and caring about their family members.

Are you prepared if someone goes missing from your family?  Today we will discuss what you need to do and how to be prepared if you need to report someone missing.  You need to know the laws for your state or country and what item or information you will need for law enforcement.   Information that could mean the difference of finding someone quick.  We will also discuss the growing numbers of Commercial Sexual Exploitation  of Children and what is happening in your own back yard.

For thirty years Nichole Ouellette thought her mother abandoned her at age 10, in April of 2015 she finally learned the truth. On August 3, 1985, a vehicle in Fontana, California struck a beautiful young woman, she was transported to the hospital where she died. During the investigation death investigators found her handbag but there was no identification.  The unidentified female was buries in a poppers gave in the County of San Bernardino, California.  In 2014 a Eileen O’Brien in Salem, Massachusetts was watching a television program on missing persons and mentioned a program where DNA is obtained from family members of missing persons. Eileen’s sister went missing in 1985 so she went on the internet and learned they could provide family DNA samples to be entered into a national database by NamUs.  Family provided DNA and within months positive identification was made between the young women in California and the family in Massachusetts.  Nichole Ouellette said she is happy to finally have closure and know her mother did not abandon her.   

In this episode of In Search of the Missing we will be speaking with Alissa Watt from The Missed Lives Project out of Ontario, Canada.  Their purpose is to help families find their loved ones and provide resources they would ordinarily not be able to obtain.  The Missed Lives Project provides a solution to the massive problem of unknown missing individuals, of whom there are over 300* missing for longer than one year, and over 200* unidentified remains, unclaimed for longer than one year, in Ontario alone.  Starting in Hamilton, Halton and Peel Regions, The Project will educate the public about their community's missing persons, assisting families to participate in awareness-raising, and generating leads by publicizing evidence photographs, facial reconstructions, and pertinent case details.   Currently, marginalized, racialized, and criminalized demographics have much lower solve rates for homicides,** and likely a similar level for missing persons. In part this is due to unbalanced media coverage for missing individuals, which results in less community awareness (and therefore fewer tips, fewer search campaign volunteers, less funding for billboards and fliers). The Project levels the playing field so anyone needing assistance publicizing, and searching for, their missing can connect with their community when they need to most. Alissa is a researcher and writer. She has years of experience studying violence and oppression in Canada. She is passionate about advocacy and action in service of marginalized communities. She holds a Master's degree in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory from McMaster University and has her Private Investigator's license.  In this program we also review two cases of long term missing individuals.

Bobby Allen was last seen on August 15, 1986, when he left his family home in Hesperia, California.  Bobby was in the U.S. Navy and was returning to his ship, the USS William H. Bates, in San Diego, he was never heard from again.   In the beginning family tried to report him as missing but the military and law enforcement would only classify him as Absent With Out Leave (AWOL).  Finally, in 2014 a missing persons report was accepted by Law Enforcement.  For many years Bobby’s sister and other family members conducted their own searches for him.  As of today, Bobby’s disappearance is suspicious.  In this broadcast we will hear from Bobby’s sister and learn about him and what her thoughts are on the missing person case.   

On any given day in the United States there are over 80,000 missing and 8,000 unidentified persons.  In this program we speak with Todd Matthews from the National Missing and Unidentified System, known as NamUs.  Todd joined the NamUs management team in 2011 as the program transitioned to the UNT Health Science Center. In his current role, he manages the NamUs Regional System Administrator staff, oversees quality assurance and quality control of NamUs data, performs outreach and training, coordinates all NamUs print and broadcast media, and serves as the media spokesperson for NamUs. He previously served as a NamUs Regional System Administrator and was a member of the NamUs Advisory Board for the development of the NamUs database and program. In those roles, he piloted efforts to coordinate data exchanges between NamUs and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Todd has also served as the Media Director for two important volunteer programs related to missing and unidentified persons: The Doe Network and Project EDAN. He has worked as a blogger for Discovery ID and served as a consultant for Jerry Brukheimer on "The Forgotten" and Dick Wolf on "Lost & Found", two scripted series related to missing and unidentified persons. NamUs is a national centralized repository and resource center for missing persons and unidentified decedent records. NamUs is a free online system that can be searched by medical examiners, coroners, law enforcement officials and the general public from all over the country in hopes of resolving these cases. “In Search of the Missing” is dedicated to helping find those who have gone missing and shining a light on this silent epidemic.   Each week we will highlight missing person cases and offer advice from experts in the field of law enforcement, private organizations and others who are dedicated to finding the missing.