Yeah, so if a missing persons case is reasonably recent (like within the last ten or twelve years or so) I check and see if they have accounts with Facebook or MySpace or whatever. Those accounts are a great source of MP photos, and sometimes I’ll get pics of their tattoos, scars, whatever as well.
Last night I had a missing persons case from a year ago. I looked for her on Facebook and found three accounts of varying age, the oldest one from back around ten years ago, and the newest going all the way up to her disappearance. (Her last Facebook post was made the very day she went missing, saying she was no longer with some guy and that he had thrown her out.)
In the oldest account, several photos of her showed the outline of a heart on her forearm. However, the MP’s NamUs page didn’t mention a heart and said she had a tattoo of a “small Chinese symbol” on her forearm.
I thought there were three possible explanations:
- NamUs was wrong about the tattoo information.
- At some time in the years after she got the heart tattoo, the woman got a coverup tattoo changing the heart into a Chinese symbol.
- She had both tattoos, a heart on one forearm and a Chinese symbol on the other forearm.
Not knowing for sure what was going on there, I said on her casefile that she had a Chinese symbol OR a heart tattoo on her forearm.
The Charley Project Blog 
Good call, I would have done the same.
Meaghan, I agree with your decision. However, it be a good idea to contact NamUs, and bring it to their attention. Then they can follow up with the appropriate investigative agency for them to check her social media accounts, and even with the former boyfriend and her family to clarify the issue of the tattoo’s.
I found Patricia Erin Scala had a record of “Heroin sale, manuf/deliver” (https://public.courtrecords.org/people/patricia%20+scala+fl/), not just using but sale, manufacture and deliver Heroin, this kind life carried risk, would that have something to do with her disappearance ?
Her life was troubled. She had multiple drug related arrests and had been homeless. But the fact that the police dug up her and her bf’s former home indicates it may have been domestic violence.
Also, in the US, if you are caught with over a certain amount of drugs they automatically charge you with sale/deliver whether you are an actual dealer or just a heavy user.
Interestingly her arrest records were removed from those website I usually checked, have to find her records from searching Florida court records. Her disappearance of course could be domestic related, but since she was in drug world, it would be more complicated, I could know more if I buy her report, but Nah, that would be too much
Speaking of pictures, I’ve noticed several more recent MPs have Snapchat-filtered photos in their case files. I know more pictures are better, but I’m wondering… should those be included? They completely change your skin tone, eye shape, face shape, etc. I know people who use them for almost all their pictures and they look nothing like how they do in real life.
I agree that such pictures aren’t the greatest. Problem is, sometimes basically the only photos I can find are filtered ones. I’m going off their Facebook or whatever and many people only put up filtered/Facetuned pics.