Tips on Facebook

People send me “tips” about cases all the time, mostly through email. I really wish they wouldn’t. I try to actively discourage people from doing this, for obvious reasons, but what can you do?

I got a really intriguing private message on Charley’s Facebook page last night, though, that I did feel compelled to pass on to the NCMEC. A woman from Mexico, whose English wasn’t terribly good, sent me a series of messages saying she had found a missing boy in Mexico. He’s been missing for nine years. She said she’d also found his mother — where, she didn’t say, whether the mom was with him or what.

All of this is not very much by itself: she didn’t even say WHERE in Mexico this kid supposedly is. But intriguingly, the woman attached a series of what appear to be current photos of this young man.

I called the NCMEC and told them about it, and they actually had me email them all the photos and stuff. I hope something comes of this.

Make-a-List Monday: Dialysis patients

This list is for MPs who were on dialysis when they disappeared. To those who might know what dialysis is exactly, basically a treatment for when the person’s kidneys have failed. They get be hooked up to a machine on a regular basis, I think once a week if not more, which does the kidney’s job for them.

You can work and basically live a pretty normal life while on dialysis, but the treatment is very expensive and it’s not as good as having a working kidney. If a dialysis patient is lucky, either their kidneys start working again or they can get a kidney transplant. You only need one functioning kidney to live, so living donors are an option. I actually looked into signing myself up to become a living donor, but after studying the requirements I concluded I probably would not meet the qualifications.

(They can also do liver dialysis, but that technique is quite new and I’m not sure how commonly it’s used.)

Anyway, if you need dialysis and you can’t get it, you’ll die within a few weeks or less. So it’s very unlikely that any of the MPs on this list are still alive. Fortunately there are only a few of them.

1. Clarence Earl Jenkins
2. Verna Marie Richardson
3. Robert K. Vernier