Quotes in Australian media

Back when the girls in Cleveland were located, I got contacted by a whole bunch of different media people wanting to interview me. One of those was from Australia. I spoke to the reporter on the phone but never heard back from him as to what had been published, so I figured he hadn’t used my material. (That happens sometimes: not everyone who gets interviewed by a news source gets published. It’s like how if you’re researching a paper or a book you’re writing, you’re not going to use every source you come across.)

Well, I stumbled across quotes my Australian interview while looking for something else. It appears they used it after all, and just forgot to tell me about it. Here it is: The World Today: Finding missing women alive a rare occurrence.

I’m pleased that my quotes are included in the same article as Elizabeth Smart’s. I admire her very much.

This makes four continents I’ve been in the news at: North America of course, and Europe (I got interviewed by a TV station in Paris after the Cleveland girls story broke), and South America (in May 2012 I got interviewed by a TV station in Colombia) and now Australia. There remains Asia and Africa. And, I suppose, Antarctica, but what are the chances of that ever happening?

Latest MP news, back by popular demand

In alphabetical order:

There’s finally an article giving info about Stephen Shawn Austin, a teenager who vanished from El Paso, Texas sixteen years ago. Stephen, it would appear, had been in trouble with the law and disappeared the day after his first meeting with his probation officer. A cousin reported seeing him in 1999, but that hasn’t been confirmed, and other than that, NO ONE has seen or heard from Stephen since 1997.

This article provides a few more details about the 1986 disappearance of elderly woman Shirley Pullen from South Bend, Indiana.

Kristin Denise Smart‘s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Flores, the man they believe was responsible for her disappearance and probable murder. (Incidentally, I think they’re right. The guy is a scumbag.) Unfortunately, according to this article, the suit is hanging in limbo because the police refuse to release info from what they term is an active investigation. Kristin’s family says they hardly care anymore what happens to Flores and they just want to know what he did with their daughter.

As about a zillion people have told me, Nathan Slinkard has returned home from Mexico. Nathan was five when he was abducted, along with his three-year-old sister Sydney and seven-year-old brother Andrew, from Greenfield, Indiana in 1997. The children’s non-custodial mother, Trena Slinkard, took them. Last week Nathan (now 23) walked into the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara with documents proving his identity. He’s been reunited with his searching father. Sydney and Andrew are still missing, but apparently they’re well aware of their father’s existence and know they’re free to go back to the U.S. should they so choose. I hope they do. This is the best possible outcome for a long-term family abduction case.

Speaking of family abductions, the police are still searching for Bethany Tiner, who was abducted by her mother at the age of three in 1997. Bethany’s parents divorced in 1996 and Dad got full custody of both Bethany and her sister. For some reason, when Mom took off, she only took the younger child. Bethany is 20 years old now, wherever she is, and has half-siblings she’s never met and doesn’t know about.

And, from abroad:

The cops think they’ve more or less solved the 1957 disappearance of eleven-year-old Moira Anderson from Scotland. Alexander Gartshore, a convicted child rapist, is the prime suspect in her case and the authorities say that if he hadn’t died in 2006, they would have indicted him by now. Even Gartshore’s daughter, a friend of Moira’s, believes her father was the killer. But where the child’s remains were disposed of is anyone’s guess.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the police are digging up someone’s backyard looking for the remains of Marilyn Wallman, a 14-year-old who disappeared in 1972.