It’s got to the point where, when I start looking at the people on NamUs who went missing just over a year ago and can now be added to Charley, or at the runaways listed on the NCMEC (most of which are missing two years before I add them to Charley), I am initially unsure whether these people are REALLY missing or not. I would estimate 10% of the time or sometimes more, those people were found long ago and have just not been removed from the databases. A simple Google search will reveal that these people are not missing.
Given how well-funded and famous both NamUs and the NCMEC are, this is really inexcusable. I should not have to be checking on this; they should be at least reliable enough that the people they say as missing are, in fact, missing. I have written before about the real-life consequences this could lead to for the no-longer-missing person.
Honestly I don’t think it’s appropriate for NamUs to have people added that only disappeared a couple of days ago. It’s very unlikely that the NamUs database can assist in cases as recent as that, and very likely that the person will turn up one way or another, and often when that happens, for whatever reason they don’t get taken off NamUs and a year or more later they’re still on there.
I don’t know why it happens, whether it’s lack of money, lack of staff, some kind of bureaucratic tangle, just plain laziness, or what. I don’t know that much about the inner workings of NamUs or the NCMEC. I just know that this is completely unacceptable and a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
There’s nothing I can do about it, I suppose, and NamUs and the NCMEC definitely don’t listen to me, seeing as how I’ve been complaining about this issue for months. Just wanted to vent. Again.
The Charley Project Blog 
Your frustration is felt ❤️ I am disheartened hearing anything like this, most likely hampered by poor funding. Which leads to fewer people handling the workload. Which leads to erroneous information out in the wild.
My biggest pet peeves right now are how LE are handling recent cases. One, running away from an abusive “adoptive” father. If you read the arresting affidavit, they were unkind to this young girl victim. There was so much better language that should have been used. IMHO.
The other. Abby and Libby. 2 years. Those poor girls really deserve justice. I hope they are onto someone out there. Or at least have some idea. I don’t know. Is it good that they won’t release any other audio that the girls captured?
I won’t go any further than JC saving herself. That was one for the ages! 88 days and Ran For Freedom. And I wonder if anyone had any clue that this would be the outcome?
I know NamUs is funded by the feds, but I’m not sure how much they get. I am not trying to get political but have been so many cuts and rollbacks in domestic spending under the current administration.
I contacted the Regional Program Specialist for my state to ask why none the last dozen of my missing persons submissions for the state had been made publicly viewable for almost a year. I was told that the number of submissions are so high that they are not able to get to them all as fast and have to prioritize. They also have a higher volume of Coroner/ME cases coming in so those need attention. In addition, they had Unclaimed come back online after the other two databases were upgraded, so they had to deal with those as well.
I’ve heard from others who have had similar experiences.
If they’re overwhelmed perhaps they should hire more staff.
Do you have addresses for them? Maybe if more of us write to them they may listen. Just an idea.
Quite awhile ago, I contacted a detective on a case where this had occurred.
He said that he had every reason to believe this person was indeed alive and well, he’d seen the same social media profile that I had. But he said that doesn’t mean they can just close it because the person is still technically missing.
He said if the missing person comes in and identifies themselves, they’d close it, but they weren’t going to go hunt the person down to verify that it’s the same person.
The person was reported as a runaway but was already an adult when I spoke to LE. And last I checked, is still listed as missing.
I contacted a woman over social media who was listed as missing with a state database, and asked her if she knew she was listed as a missing person. She said she was aware and had called the police department about it, and they told her only a personal visit would clear it up. As she now lived out of state, this wasn’t exactly a priority for her, but she planned to try to get it sorted when she next came back to her hometown to visit relatives.
I remember reading that NamUs, had a problem getting about $1 million dollars from the Department of Justice, a few years ago. So, it appears most of their funding comes from a federal grant. I think it would be nice of several of those wealthy individuals could throw them a few extra bucks.
I read that the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Police has a foundation that receives money to support their Cold Case Unit. The foundation uses the money to fund DNA and other forensic testing, and investigations.