I don’t get it — every once in a great while, the NCMEC will put up an age-progression of someone, then mysteriously remove it and not replace it with another. It happened with Mikelle Biggs (see her AP on her Charley Project page here). And I just noticed it happened with Fawn and Rozlin Abell. Their APs (Rozlin and Fawn) were put up a little over a year ago. And now they’re gone.
Sometimes someone (the families?) is unsatisfied with the original AP and the NCMEC makes a new one at the same age. In which case I’ll post both. But I don’t understand this business of just making them mysteriously disappear.
The Charley Project Blog 
Maybe their families don’t believe they’re still with us?
I don’t get it either, Meaghan. I completely understand why a missing person’s loved one may be dissatisfied with a picture or if it’s too painful to watch their child grow up through computer-enhanced photos and ask them to stop making them, but if it’s NCMEC doing it on their own, I just can’t follow. It’s like Suzanne Lyall’s two new ones; the first one (which both you and NCMEC removed but is still up at NAMPN) was more realistic-looking, imo, while the other one, like her one from 2004, is kind of cartoonish-looking. But then again, even those labeled “composite” may be so well done, you forget it is an AP, such as Marti Bell’s.
Yes I agree with Robin maybe it hurts people to see a child grown up while they think he/she actually never got this chance.
I know of one missing child’s father who kept her AP picture in his wallet, in place of all the ones he would have had if she were with him.
I remember that case too.
An AP doesn’t just give a glimpse of what the person might look like now; it recirculates the poster and provides publicity. Any of those might solve the case. I would only make exceptions where a more current photo is available or the case is such that recovering a body is near impossible.