“An Uncertain Future for a Key Missing Persons Program” and other stories

Another article dump (I’ve decided to make a regular thing of this, even after I’m out of Facebook Jail):

This article about the near-defunding of NamUs. Key highlight: “Meanwhile, according to a statement from NIJ, the program could be facing staffing and service cuts, at least in the short-term — and it remains unclear what exactly the longer-term future of NamUs may be.”

From Alaska: four Native people disappeared this fall after visiting the city of Fairbanks, and they are all still missing. Their names are Willis Derendorf, Frank Minano, Debbie Nictune and Doren Sanford. Police don’t think the cases are related.

From Florida: Ashley Lucas disappeared in September, a few months after traveling from her home in Texas to the Florida Panhandle for work. She was hospitalized and has not been seen since her release at the end of the month.

From Massachusetts: it’s coming up on the sixth anniversary of the disappearance of Sabrina Lee Hatheway from Worcester.

From Mississippi: they’ve installed Crime Stoppers kiosks in Walmarts in Biloxi, Gulfport and Pascagoula to help find missing people from the area.

From Nevada: A body found in 2004 has been identified as Aldo Araiza, who disappeared in 2000 at the age of 20.

From North Carolina: the police are still looking for two people missing from Shelby: Kenneth Jamison, missing since 2017, and Walter Vernon McCraw, missing since 2018.

From Ohio: Brian Rini, who surfaced in Cincinnati in April 2019 and falsely claimed he was Timmothy James Pitzen, who disappeared from Wisconsin in 2011, has been sentenced to two years in prison for identity theft as a result. But because he gets credit for 20 months of time served, he’ll be out in four months. A year of probation follows his release.

Also from Ohio: the police are still looking for Jeffrey Hayes Pottinger, who disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2009 from Warren County.

From Texas: the police are still looking for Orville Seaton, who disappeared from Navasota two days before Christmas in 1997. He was 71 at the time and would be 94 today.

From Virginia: Ronald Roldan, recently charged with the kidnapping of Bethany Anne Decker, has now been charged with her murder as well. Bethany has been missing since 2011.

From Wyoming: Angela Laderlich disappeared from Casper on September 25 and is still missing.

From England: they found some human bones in Solihull, which were thought to possibly be those of thirteen-year-old David Spencer and eleven-year-old Patrick Warren, who disappeared the day after Christmas in 1996. However, it turns out the bones are over a century old.

From Nigeria: in an all-too-familiar story, the terrorist group Boko Haram has kidnapped more than 330 boys from a government-run boarding school in Kankara.

From Pakistan: despite promises to end the practice, security forces are still regularly abducting, torturing and murdering people. Thousands of victims are still missing.

From Scotland: A review of missing people from Glasgow.

4 thoughts on ““An Uncertain Future for a Key Missing Persons Program” and other stories

  1. Patrick Kerrigan December 16, 2020 / 7:46 pm

    The Crimestoppers kiosks in Walmart is interesting. They have at the Walmarts, I go to have large boards with missing kids on them.

    I don’t if they helped recovered any of them. But, it gets their images out there to the public.

    It might be an idea to have an electronic billboard along the interstates that could alert drivers about missing people in a region.

    Also, thanks for the updates, maybecwe can generate some lesds.

    • Meaghan December 16, 2020 / 7:48 pm

      I know that Marsha Loritz, whose mom Victoria Prokopovitz is missing and who founded the Wisconsin missing persons organization whose events I go to annually (except this year cause covid) convinced an ad agency to donate electronic billboard space to profile Wisconsin MPs.

  2. Patrick Kerrigan December 17, 2020 / 11:18 am

    That sounds like a plan. I wonder how to spread that around the country. I will look at it. The only thing is some of my best ideas come early in the morning while sleeping. Then try and remember them, when I wake up.

  3. Patrick Kerrigan December 17, 2020 / 12:04 pm

    Meaghan, I came across an article from Casper, Wyoming. It appears that Desiree Tinoco, the founder of Missing People of Wyoming a, Facebook page, spoke before the Casper Wyoming City Council, about missing persons issue.

    She said there is no State of Wyoming data base of missing people, also families lack the resources to spread the word that a family member is missing.

    She hoped to get some attention to get a database created to assist families and law enforcement

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