Detectives Suspect Foul Play in Missing Persons Case

Indianapolis —Investigators fear the worst for an Indianapolis man who has been missing for several months. Michael Summers, 44, was last seen on August 20th at Bryant's Friendly Inn Tavern on South East Street.

Since he disappeared, metro police say there has been no activity on his bank account or cell phone. He has also not been in contact with any family member, which is strange because his family doesn't believe he would voluntarily stay away from them during the holidays.

Before he went missing, Summers was in the process of trying to save his father's home from repossession. Detectives suspect foul play in his disappearance.

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Utah Girl Turns Up In Sacramento After Missing Person's Alert; Man Arrested

SACRAMENTO —A 13-year-old Utah girl will be reunited with her family later this week after being discovered in Sacramento with a 30-year-old man.

According to KSL-TV, 13-year-old Astrid Valdivia of Clearfield, Utah left her family a note saying she was running away from home last September. Based on information passed on from Valdivia's family to police, a missing person's alert known as the Endangered Persons Advisory was issued for Valdivia Tuesday afternoon.

By Tuesday evening, police had been tipped off that Valdivia was staying with 30-year-old Sacramento resident Anthony Martinez. Local authorities investigated the tip, located the pair and arrested Martinez on suspicion of child endangerment and resisting arrest.

Martinez is expected to be charged by authorities in Utah with kidnapping.

Police say Valdivia will be reunited with her family soon.

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Vader Now a Suspect in McCann Missing Persons Case

Travis Edward Vader is now considered a suspect in the case of a missing Alberta elderly couple.

Previously, RCMP would only refer to Vader has a person of interest, but they now say foul play is suspected.

Lyle and Marie McCann went missing July 3rd. Two days later their burned motorhome was found near Edson and days after that, their abandoned S-U-V was discovered.

The couple had been on their way to B.C to visit their family.

Vader was named a person of interest 13 days after the couple went missing.

RCMP won't disclose what information gathered lead them to name him as a suspect. Vader remains in custody on unrelated charges.

The McCann children are offering up thousands of dollars in reward money for information that leads investigators to the couple and results in the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

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Search Ends For Lake Michigan Crash Survivors

Authorities today called off search for finding four people missing since a small plane plunged into Lake Michigan Friday morning. The plane crashed while flying a cancer patient to the Mayo Clinic. Jerry Freed, the 66-year-old pilot of the plane, was rescued following the crash several miles off the west Michigan coast. The rescuers searched for the missing persons for 27 hours but in vain. “Rescuers concluded there was little chance anyone else had survived,”said Petty Officer Brandon Blackwell of the U.S. Coast Guard's district headquarters in Cleveland.
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"We can resume a search if credible information is received that persons missing may be alive. At this point, we saturated an area that's approximately 1,000 square miles . . . and we've turned up nothing," Petty Officer Blackwell told the Associated Press.

The missing persons are co-pilot Earl Davidson; Alma schools Superintendent Don Pavlik; his wife, Irene; and Dr. James Hall. All were residents of Alma, a central Michigan town 150 miles northwest of Detroit. Pavlik was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus earlier this week and Freed and Davidson had offered to fly him to the medical center in Rochester, Minn., for treatment. Dr. Hall joined them, said Costanzo.


Talking to Mount Pleasant Morning Sun Dr. Hall's wife, Ann, said that the doctor's medical bag had been recovered. "We are praying to God that all (will) be taken care of. We love you. Jim," wrote James Hall. Freed was released from the hospital yesterday, confirmed hospital spokesman Bill Kerans. He added that Freed was unwilling to give an interview.

"We can resume a search if credible information is received that persons missing may be alive. At this point, we saturated an area that's approximately 1,000 square miles . . . and we've turned up nothing," Petty Officer Blackwell told the Associated Press.

The missing persons are co-pilot Earl Davidson; Alma schools Superintendent Don Pavlik; his wife, Irene; and Dr. James Hall. All were residents of Alma, a central Michigan town 150 miles northwest of Detroit. Pavlik was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus earlier this week and Freed and Davidson had offered to fly him to the medical center in Rochester, Minn., for treatment. Dr. Hall joined them, said Costanzo.


Talking to Mount Pleasant Morning Sun Dr. Hall's wife, Ann, said that the doctor's medical bag had been recovered. "We are praying to God that all (will) be taken care of. We love you. Jim," wrote James Hall. Freed was released from the hospital yesterday, confirmed hospital spokesman Bill Kerans. He added that Freed was unwilling to give an interview.

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Will Joran van der Sloot Give Up Location of Natalee Holloway’s Body?

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (CBS/AP) Prosecutors in Aruba said they want to take Joran van der Sloot up on his offer to discuss the unsolved disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway.

Van der Sloot told his jailers he is ready to talk, but there's a catch.

The Dutch national, who is the only suspect in Holloway's 2005 disappearance, will only talk to Aruba authorities in Aruba.

Van der Sloot has said he fears for his life in the Peruvian prison, where he is awaiting trial in the slaying of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room.

Judicial authorities in Peru said they are willing to arrange a conversation between island police and Van der Sloot, but it's unlikely he would be brought to the Caribbean island before completing any sentence if convicted in the South American country, said Peter Blanken, the island's chief prosecutor.

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Prison Playing Cards Feature Missing Teen Brittanee Drexel

Authorities believe a new deck of cards featuring missing persons could help locate missing New York teen Brittanee Drexel.

Monica Caison with the CUE center for missing persons said the cards will be distributed throughout state prisons in hopes that clues will surface in the missing persons’ cases.

Drexel is featured on the two of diamonds.

According to helpfindbrittaneedrexel.com, “Effective Playing Cards” are released to every inmate in the Florida State Prison System.

The decks are also released in other participating states, including South Carolina.

“In the prison system guys talk, and Florida had a case solved because one inmate heard a guy bragging about it,“ said Thomas Lucas, President of Spartanburg Crime Stoppers, the group that brought the cards to South Carolina. “These cards came out and [the inmate] said, ‘I know who did this’.“

The Drexel family is on the Grand Strand for a series of events this weekend that mark the one year anniversary of the disappearance of Brittanee.

They attended the unveiling of the deck of cards Friday.

Saturday, a march down Ocean Boulevard will start at 5:30 at the Bar Harbor Motel and will end at the Blue Water Resort, the hotel where Brittanee was last seen.

At 7:30 there will be a candle light vigil to raise awareness and mark the anniversary of Brittanee’s disappearance.

Caison said there are still constant searches going on for Brittanee, and believes the new playing cards could aid in those search efforts.

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NamUs Missing Person Database Goes Unused by 93 Percent of Law Enforcement

Since 2009, families and medical examiners have had access to a free online database that's designed to assist in the identification of more than 40,000 sets of unidentified remains across the country. Dubbed "NamUs," short for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the program allows both parties to enter identifying characteristics of a missing person or unidentified body in the hopes that this information exchange will help match a face to a fate.

It's a grim consolation for those whose friends or families have been affected by violence or accidents. Nevertheless, the Associated Press reports that the free service has helped solved 16 cases since the cross-matching feature went live in July of last year. The numbers don't end there: the service is home to around 6,200 unidentified sets of remains, 2,800 missing people, and--according to The Crime Report--has been accessed (on the missing persons front) by more than 185,000 people as of January 2009.

What's the problem? According to the AP, only 1,100 of the nation's 17,000 law enforcement agencies, or 6.5 percent, are registered with the service. That's partly a publicity issue, as numerous law enforcement agencies simply don't know the service exists. Others are more leery about using limited resources to participate in the service.

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Minnesota Bill Could Speed Up Tracking Missing People

ST. PAUL -- The assistant St. Paul police chief says authorities may have found an 18-year-old Eveleth man's body quicker last year if they had tracked his mobile telephone.

A bill making its way through the Minnesota Legislature was written to make the job easier by requiring mobile telephone companies to tell law enforcement officers the whereabouts of missing people's mobile phones.

Last April 5, Dan Zamlen went missing in St. Paul. More than 1,000 fellow Iron Rangers searched for him along the Mississippi River, but his body was not found until nearly a month later. His death was ruled an accidental drowning.

"Perhaps with this bill ... we could have gotten on this even quicker," Assistant Chief Nancy DiPerna said Thursday, just before a Senate committee unanimously approved the bill.

A House committee takes up the measure this morning.

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Former Growing Pains actor Andrew Koenig missing in Vancouver

Family and friends are anxious about the safety of actor Andrew Koenig -- who played Boner in the '80s TV show Growing Pains -- after he disappeared in Vancouver last week.

Koenig, son of actor Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov on the original Star Trek TV series, is believed to have sent his family a letter post-marked Feb. 15 from Vancouver before his disappearance. Koenig, 41, is said to have been suffering from depression.

He arrived in Vancouver on Feb. 10 and was due to fly out of Vancouver on Feb. 16 but never boarded the flight.

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Mother Takes Fight For Missing Persons To Capitol Hill

All eyes were on Sen.-elect Scott Brown this week.

Made sense. The former Cosmo centerfold (bleh) who turned the political landscape upside down with his Republican win in Massachusetts (ouch) made his Washington debut Thursday with rock star fanfare.

But as hot as Brown was, my attention that day was on an admittedly less star-studded U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Committee hearing.

I know, Dullsville.

And yet I found myself riveted to a live feed as a mother described her nearly five-year search for her son in hopes of reforming the way missing-persons cases are handled.

In heartbreaking detail, Janice Smolinski testified before a congressional subcommittee in favor of Billy's Law — named after her 31-year-old son, Billy Smolinski Jr., who went missing in Waterbury on Aug. 24, 2004.

Smolinski told judiciary members about her son's disappearance and the additional frustrations heaped on families already dealing with the agonizing loss of a loved one.

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