A black Cloud Settled in Over Us and the Nightmare Began

The number of people who go missing in Chicago and around the country staggers the imagination. In Chicago alone, 20,022 people were reported missing last year. That comes to 54 people, on average, reported missing here each day. Nationally, more than 800,000 people were reported missing last year.

When a Loved One Goes Missing

The case of Tanya Rider, the Maple Valley woman found in her crashed car seven days after she vanished, raised questions about searches for missing people.

Since she was found Sept. 27, concerns have surfaced about how quickly cell phone records can be obtained, how her husband’s initial 911 calls were handled and why she wasn’t found sooner.

How Do Police Determine What Missing Persons They'll Look For?

Two missing person cases in our area prompted us to take a look at how police decide what cases they'll devote their time to. Authorities began searching for 65-year-old Michael Chase after he disappeared after his appointment at the Salem VA Medical Center. He was found safe earlier today in Christiansburg.

Things were a little different for authorities in Bedford and Botetourt Counties. Their search for 19-year-old Samantha Bittler ended tragically. Bittler was thrown from her car and died from head, chest and neck trauma. She was found nine days after her family began their search for her.

How do police determine what missing persons they'll look for?

Two missing person cases in our area prompted us to take a look at how police decide what cases they'll devote their time to. Authorities began searching for 65-year-old Michael Chase after he disappeared after his appointment at the Salem VA Medical Center. He was found safe earlier today in Christiansburg.

Things were a little different for authorities in Bedford and Botetourt Counties. Their search for 19-year-old Samantha Bittler ended tragically. Bittler was thrown from her car and died from head, chest and neck trauma. She was found nine days after her family began their search for her.

Lyalls' Missing Persons Work Goes National

Those who have gone missing in New York state are remembered each year on April 6, the birthday of Suzanne Lyall, the University at Albany student who disappeared nearly 10 years ago.

Doug and Mary Lyall are keeping their fingers crossed that a National Missing Persons Day will also be April 6. It all happened very fast last week.

Political Connection: Subconscious Racism Apparent in Coverage of Missing Persons

Have you heard of Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart, or Natalee Holloway?

If you rely on the American media for your source of information, you probably have. The mainstream media was on these missing persons cases from the get-go, plastering their pretty smiling faces on every news channel. Hours upon hours of airtime have been devoted to these missing individuals. Newspapers, radio stations, and especially television networks have covered the exhaustive FBI and volunteer searches, the candlelight vigils, and every new development in each case until everyone in America knew their names. In the case of Natalee Holloway, it didn't stop there. The 18-year-old Alabaman didn't just garner mere national attention. The Dutch Marines and the Aruban government pitched in with the "rescue" effort when she disappeared during her Caribbean class trip.

What about Angela Frances Lynne Delucca, Diamond and Tionda Bradley, or Christian Ferguson? Have you heard of them?

Probably not. These children are only a few of the 58,000 American children gone missing each year. And unlike Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway, they are among the number of missing minorities that are far less likely to garner attention from large media networks like ABC, CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. It seems like the media has chosen to focus almost exclusively on missing white photogenic women. Why is it that we constantly hear about each new development in their cases, while for the majority of missing children, the only mention they receive is a poster in the entrance of the local Wal-Mart?

Website Aims to Identify Unknown Dead

Inside its electronic files are the fresh cases: The latest runaways with reports filed just days or hours ago; the random "disappearances" of loved ones who've simply fallen out of touch.

Inside are cases old and infamous, too: vanishings unsolved for decades; still-hidden victims of notorious serial killers; toddlers here one day, gone the next.

And there, among them all, is the roll of this state's anonymous dead -- 107 men, women and children, silently waiting for their names to be restored.

Mentally challenged woman still missing on Oahu

Sue Johnson left her home in New England and arrived here Monday in hopes of locating her mentally challenged adult daughter, Zuely Johnson.

Sue Johnson said she last heard from Zuely a week ago and believes her daughter may be with Richard Lee Oglesby Jr., 44, who failed to show up in Circuit Court Sept. 14 for sentencing in a narcotics case.

When the Media Hurricane Hits

The parents of Madeleine McCann, a four-year-old British girl reported missing during a family vacation in Portugal four months ago, know how to get good coverage from a fickle press industry. Or maybe they ran into a bit of luck.

Interest in her case has waned over the months. But to compensate for the news media's short attention span, the McCanns are going to air commercials all over Europe in two weeks to remind the world that their daughter is still missing. Naturally, this has again brought fresh coverage from various news networks such as CNN, BBC and MSNBC.

The family has already received more than $2 million in donations for a Find Madeleine fund, and Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, pledged an additional $200,000 toward the McCann's defense expenses, as they are still considered suspects in the case.

Abducted Boy Found in Colorado Springs

A ten year old boy who went missing in California more than three months ago has turned up in Colorado Springs. Tonight the boy's father, who did not have custody and is accused of kidnapping his son, is under arrest.

It all started with a missing persons flyer like one from the National Center for Missing and Exploited children. It was posted near a restroom inside a Walmart store in Colorado Springs.

A friend from a church the boy and his father attended saw the flyer and recognized both Murrell Howell, Jr. and Murrell Sr., in the pictures but she did not recognize their names.

Police Not Ruling Out D'Alessandro Left on Free Will

Where is Frank D’Alessandro?

That’s a question New Jersey police will be trying to answer today as the search for the missing Fort Myers real estate tycoon enters its sixth day.

Investigators are keeping open minds and have not ruled out the possibility D’Alessandro left of his own free will, Point Pleasant Beach police Chief Daniel J. DePolo said.

Family Says Missing Girl Spotted on Surveillance Tape

Is it possible the little girl seen recently walking into an Orlando drugstore is 4-year-old Jewel Strong, who local authorities believe died more than a year ago? Her family says yes.

Simona Strong, whose daughter was thought to have drowned last year, believes the grainy drugstore surveillance video is evidence that Jewel is alive and well.

Debbie Culberson Helps Unveil New DNA Database

The mother of a local Cincinnati woman who has been missing since 1996 is throwing her support behind a new DNA database.

Debbie Culberson was in Washington, D.C., Tuesday for the unveiling of the National Missing and Unidentified Missing Persons System.

The new national database can be used to match unidentified remains with records of missing people.

A Mother Takes On MIT

On April 12, Sue Kayton learned that her son, a 22-year-old senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had gone missing. Four days later, a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people on that campus.

The following week, while Virginia Tech was being criticized for withholding information about the gunman due to its privacy policy, MIT's own privacy policy was leading it to reject Ms. Kayton's requests for information she believed would help her find her son. The administration refused to allow Ms. Kayton access to her son's dorm room or to his computer files. It demanded a subpoena even after her son was listed in a national missing persons database.

RMNP Search Crews Baffled

Peterson Lake - Where are Terry and Marion Jones?

The question baffled search crews and friends of the Fort Collins couple, described as experienced in the outdoors, for a second day Wednesday as they combed the rugged trails north of Rocky Mountain National Park where the couple disappeared over the weekend.

Searchers found no clues in the disappearance of Terry, 56, or Marion, 49. A helicopter assisting in the search spied nothing. Dog teams brought in to sniff for tracks found none.

Search For Missing Foster Child to Gain New Momentum

The search for a missing three-year-old Las Vegas child may soon gain new momentum. The court-appointed Guardian ad Litem for Everlyse Cabrera plans to hire a private investigator to find the girl.

Everlyse Cabrera went missing from her foster home more than a year ago.

Foster parents Vilma and Manny Carrascal claim the child must have walked out the front door in the middle of the night. Everlyse was two years old at the time of her disappearance.

Manitoba NativeGroups Call for Dedicated Police Unit for Missing, Murdered Women

The killing of a young sex trade worker in Winnipeg has prompted aboriginal groups to call for the creation of a task force dedicated to the cases of murdered and missing women in Manitoba.

The call comes as the family of Fonassa Lynn Bruyere says they weren't treated respectfully when they reported the 17-year-old's disappearance nearly four weeks ago.

Police Officially Reopen 1976 Case of Missing Girl

In the winter of 1976, Karen Beth Kamsch vanished from her grandmother's Pasadena home and was never heard from again.

Now, more than 30 years later, a missing-persons report has officially been filed and the 14-year-old has been declared by police as "critically missing" and a possible victim of homicide.

DNA kits may assist searches for missing people

Families of adults who have been missing for years will get another tool to help in their searches when Youth Educated in Safety gives them DNA kits.

YES founder Jay Breyer said the kits will use hair samples and buccal swabs from family members to put into a nationwide system, hoping to match DNA from victims in potter's cemeteries and morgues.

Still No Sign of Missing Woman

Today marks one week since 21-year-old Stephanie Eldredge disappeared, and police say they are not any closer to solving the case. Detectives have received some tips, but have not gotten substantial information on the mother of three's whereabouts.

On Friday, a vast area south of Idaho Falls was searched by Bonneville County Search and Rescue, but no leads were found. A helicopter flew over the region, but did not find anything. The search was later called off, because the person who called in the tip gave a general area and wasn't specific.