NCMEC search becomes slightly less terrible, and more news

I first complained about the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s search engine back in 2013, and things got even worse with later versions of it. However, when I checked today, they’d made yet another version, which is slightly better than the last. Like, you can now search based on how old the child was when they disappeared. That’s kind of nice, I guess.

You still don’t have the ability to search by category, which they axed in 2013. As far as I can tell it’s because the NCMEC decided to phase out categories. They did this because when people saw “Family Abduction” or “Runaway” they just automatically tuned it out. I can understand the logic of the NCMEC’s thinking there.

I added Duke Flores‘s case today. It’s pretty awful. Probably not as bad as Noah McIntosh‘s (I blogged about his case in March), but it’s still pretty bad.

The whole story about Duke’s murder being prompted by his attempt he was trying to kill his infant cousin looks a little sketchy at first glance. However, both women gave the police the same account of the alleged attempted murder, and I wonder if Duke, who had autism, was just unable to deal with the baby’s crying. Most people with autism (including me) are very sensitive to noises.

They tried to cover up his disappearance by saying they’d taken Duke to a psychiatric hospital. If he was indeed trying to kill his cousin, this would have been a perfectly appropriate action to take. Certainly much more appropriate than strangling him.

We’ll never know if he really tried to smother the baby or not; the only two people alive to tell the story aren’t exactly credible witnesses. But no matter what he did there’s no excuse for murdering a six-year-old child with a disability.

The thing about his mom and aunt taking the other kids along while they disposed of his body is horrifying. Though the alternative would have been leaving them alone at home, and they were both really little. Hopefully too little to remember this later.

I hope these women get what’s coming to them. They are probably not very popular in jail; most of the women prisoners are mothers too.

MP of the week: Heather Zimmerman

This week’s featured missing person is Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman, a 19-year-old who disappeared on May 26, 1997. She was married, but living with her parents while her husband was stationed with the Marines in Japan. She apparently disappeared after leaving her parents’ Gifford, Illinois home to attend a party in nearby Rantoul. She may have been dropped off near her parents’ home at 3:00 a.m., but that hasn’t been confirmed.

Another woman, 20-year-old Jamie Harper, disappeared from Rantoul in 2007. Both Jamie and Heather are missing under suspicious circumstances, and the police stated they had the same person of interest in both cases.

Significant advances made in Corey Edkin’s case

Corey James Edkin was two years old when he disappeared from New Columbia, Pennsylvania on October 12, 1986. If still alive, he’d be 36 today.

His mom, Debbie S. Derr aka Debbie Mowrey, said she went to a nearby store shortly after midnight, leaving her roommate, her roommate’s two kids, Corey, and his sister asleep in the house. When she returned half an hour later, Corey was gone and the door was open. No one else in the house recalled having heard or seen anything unusual.

The case is still unsolved, but the police have said they’ve made “significant progress” in the case:

Tpr. Brian Watkins, the lead investigator in the Edkin case, said that investigators have made “significant advances in the Corey Edkin missing persons case” and “the individuals who caused this tragedy will be brought to justice.” […]

Troopers said they do not believe that the child walked away from the home, nor that he was abducted by any other person, according to a press release.

Watkins said that criminal investigators were recently able to make significant advances. Watkins said individuals with information on the case and advances in forensic technology have helped investigators piece together what may have happened to the child.

So the police aren’t saying much, but it’s easy to read between the lines here, isn’t it?

MP of the week: Kevin Maclin

This week’s featured missing person is Kevin Lydell Maclin, a 32-year-old African-American man who disappeared from Unalaska, Alaska on November 19, 1997. A fisherman, he was last seen leaving the fishing vessel at the Unisea Docks at 9:30 in the evening, and may have gone to a local bar. The circumstances of his disappearance are unclear.

Unalaska is a small town of a little over 4,000 people on Unalaska Island and neighboring Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Islands off mainland Alaska. Given that the islands are not large, I’m surprised no trace has been found of Maclin. I can’t find any news articles on this case.

I’m sorry this is a day late. I’ve been feeling super depressed for over a week now and I’m not really sure why; in spite of what’s going on in the world, nothing terrible has happened to me. I’m thinking it might just be a bipolar downswing. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway. If it is, that means I’ll swing back up eventually.

MP of the week: Anna Cornelia Morris

This week’s feature missing person is Anna Cornelia Morris, a 64-year-old woman who disappeared from Columbia, South Carolina on May 29, 2011. She was last seen walking away from the home she shared with her daughter.

Morris had Alzheimer’s Disease and it’s possible her disappearance is related to that, but it’s unclear how far her condition had progressed. There’s “a bit forgetful” Alzheimer’s and then there’s “completely nonverbal and unable to recall their identity” Alzheimer’s. She was sometimes afraid of being left alone but it doesn’t say why she felt unsafe. She would sometimes go over to her sister’s home several miles away for company. This leads me to believe she was still functioning fairly well, if she could remember the route and so on.

If Anna is still alive, it’s possible she’s homeless and may not remember who she is. She would be in her seventies today, if still alive. I haven’t been able to find any news about her case in recent years, and I doubt she lived long after she was last seen.

MP of the week: Francisco Sanchez

In case you’ve been living under a rock these last several days, I’ll have you know that protests and riots, sparked by one too many horrific incidents of police brutality, have lately broken out all over the country. So I thought I’d make this week’s featured missing person Francisco Javier Sanchez, a man who disappeared during the Los Angeles riots of 1992. (The Los Angeles Riots were also sparked by police brutality, in this case the beating of Rodney King, and the acquittal of the four police officers involved.)

Sanchez, a 38-year-old immigrant from Guatemala, was last seen in Los Angeles on April 30, 1992, the second day of the riots. He had only recently arrived in the country and lived with relatives on Adams Boulevard. He vanished without a trace that afternoon, leaving his last paycheck uncollected, and was never seen again.

As to whether his disappearance is related to the riots, no one knows. But something happened to him and I don’t think it was anything good.

If still alive he’d be 66 today.