MP of the week: Kamyle Burgos Ortiz

This week’s featured missing person is Kamyle Stephanie Burgos Ortiz, a 12-year-old girl who disappeared from San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico on July 8, 2006. She is of black and Hispanic descent.

Although Kamyle is classified as a runaway by some agencies, authorities think she was actually the victim of a suspected serial killer, Amilcar Matias Torres. He and Kamyle knew each other and spoke on the phone less than an hour before her disappearance. He’s never been charged with murder, but is in federal prison serving twenty years for soliciting sex online from underage girls. He’s also a suspect in the disappearances of two other Puerto Rican girls, Yeritza Aponte-Soto and Cristina Ester Ruiz-Rodriguez.

If still alive–which seems unlikely–Kamyle would be 27 years old today.

They finally made an arrest in the Kristin Smart case

Well, it’s about time: Paul Flores has been charged with murder in the 1996 disappearance of Kristen Denise Smart. They were both students at Cal Poly when she went missing and she was last seen in his company on campus. He’s been a suspect pretty much ever since. Paul’s father, Ruben, has been charged with being an accessory to the murder.

It’s been a quarter-century. I had thought this would never happen, unless they found Kristen’s body. As far as I know, they haven’t. I don’t know whether they just decided there was some time, or if some other evidence came up, or what.

I would think the Smart family would have mixed feelings about this day — justice will be done, but their daughter isn’t coming back and it’s official now.