Missing Person "Mystery" Missing Link

The curious case of Jamie Waqa has taken a turn, with friends saying the "missing" Kings Cross man has been at home the entire time and police now labelling his family "cryptic".

Mr Waqa's family - who are in Tamworth - also reportedly spoke to him yesterday, although police say he will continue to be considered missing until they have spoken to him.

Police yesterday issued a media release saying they had "grave concerns" for Mr Waqa, 23, who was believed to be living in Kings Cross or Darlinghurst.

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CA Police Criticized in Missing Girl Case

Police called the disappearance of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu a missing persons case, not an abduction, for 10 days — until some farm workers drained an irrigation pond and found her body stuffed in a suitcase. Some residents and a law-enforcement expert say authorities in Tracy should have publicly expressed more urgency about the case and warned of the danger that could be lurking in their Northern California community.

But police say that despite their initial uncertainty about Sandra's fate, they did everything they could, scouring the area, calling in reinforcements and exploring theories from dealing with a runaway to looking for a kidnapper.

"Until we had an indication that Sandra had been killed, we were treating this as a missing persons case," said Tracy police spokesman Sgt. Tony Sheneman.

"We had no indication of an abduction," he said. "We wanted to be as careful as possible.

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Most Missing Adult Cases Unsolved

It was a warm night on June 30, 1996. Patricia Minassian finished bathing her 2-year-old son during a family vacation in Bourne.

Minassian told her in-laws she was heading to the car wash and was never seen again.

Her locked car was found a day later in the parking lot of Cahoon Hollow Beach in Wellfleet. There was no sign of the 37-year-old Hingham mother of three, no suicide note. She simply vanished. Her body has never been found. Her family doesn't know her fate.

Another family may be waiting to know the identity of the person whose bones were found last weekend in an East Falmouth cranberry bog.

Police are awaiting examination of dental records and DNA tests to determine whether the remains belong to a young East Falmouth man who was reported missing last June following a bout of depression.

But many missing person cases are never resolved. There are more than 40,000 unidentified human remains held in police and medical examiner property rooms across the United States, according to the FBI's National Crime Information Center.

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