Archive | missing persons

The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People who Search for Them

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Local Disappearance Spotlighted in National Book Release

The story of Lucely “Lily” Aramburo, a resident of Miami Dade County, Florida, is featured in the upcoming book, The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People Who Search for Them by Carole Moore. (Rowman & Littlefield, May 2011)

Lily Aramburo disappeared on June 1st, 2007 from Miami, Florida.

Moore interviewed the families of dozens of missing persons across the county and around the world to compile The Last Place You’d Look, which also focuses on the efforts of police, search and rescue, nonprofits and volunteer organizations.

According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Lily Aramburo case is one of about 100,000 active, open and unresolved missing persons cases that sit on the books in the U.S. each day. The numbers are similar in Canada, where annually more than 60,000 children are reported missing. Although many who disappear return home or are found, here’s what the numbers don’t say: They’re deceptive in that there are many they don’t count, such as those who disappear in foreign countries or the unreported thousands who fall through bureaucratic cracks, like the homeless and their children. Additionally, in the U.S. alone there are more than 40,000 John and Jane Does in cemeteries and morgues across the country, still waiting to be identified.

“Except for very high profile cases, many missing persons slip from the public memory, leaving their families alone in their grief. Can you imagine not ever knowing what happened to our mother, your brother, your child, your spouse?” asks Moore, a former police investigator and contributing editor at Law Enforcement Technology Magazine. “I wrote this book to help families bring attention to their cases.”

Often families are on their own when it comes to looking for their missing loved ones. Police may have neither the resources nor inclination to pursue an investigation involving multiple jurisdictions and hundreds of man-hours. Smaller departments often lack specialized units dedicated to searching for the missing, and many times officers are ill prepared to track missing persons.

Families are also confronted with a double-edged sword: As long as the case is open, police won’t share with them the critical information gathered in the course of the investigation. They are only allowed access when the case is closed, which means the police are no longer actively looking for the missing person.

Pursuing a missing persons investigation is both expensive and emotionally draining. Families often must travel, hire private investigators, operate media campaigns and engage in search and rescue operations. Although volunteer organizations dedicated to helping families find the resources they need provide help, a proper search is expensive and takes time.

Families are also asked to do the unthinkable: Provide DNA, dental records and fingerprints, the significance of which is not lost on those left behind. Worry and stress also take their toll. As one official at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children told Moore, he is forever haunted by a mother who poignantly shared her wish to cover her missing child with a blanket because she had nightmares about the child being cold.

The anguish of having a loved one vanish is unthinkable, yet thousands of families face this heartbreak every day.  The Last Place You’d Look provides searchers a starting point and gives readers an overview of “the club no one wants to belong to.”

For more information, or to schedule an interview, contact:

Carole Moore
Moore can be reached by email at: carolemoore_biz(@)yahoo.com
Phone: 910.388.0714
For more information, you can go to her website: www.carolemoore.com

Local Contact : Janet Forte
janet.forte (@) gmail.com

“The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People who Search for Them” is available for purchase at Amazon.com. You can get a preview and search the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Place-Youd-Look-Stories/dp/1442203684

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Justice for Lily Hunger Strike in Miami

Monday, November 16, 2009 would have been my best friend, Lilly Aramburo’s 26 birthday. Lily has been missing since June 2, 2007. Her plight has been featured on Nancy Grace and Americas Most Wanted.

Lily disappeared from the apartment of her heroin addicted boyfriend in the Dadeland area. Since then, her mother Lucely and I have launched an exhaustive search for her only to become disillusioned and extremely frustrated with the lack of effort of the Miami Dade Police Department.

Police failed to locate two witnesses that were present the night she disappeared. We’ve been working with private investigator Joe Carrillo and his team for over a year locating the two witnesses within days. A convicted killer has been identified by the investigators as a person of interest in her disappearance. After four meetings with the missing persons detectives, a convicted killer who served time for murder has yet to be interviewed even though identified and located by the private investigator. Why? Police refuse to answer the why.

Lily’s mother and I desperately need to bring attention to her disappearance and want answers from the Miami Dade Police Department. We’re both commencing a hunger strike Monday at 9:00 AM in front of the Miami Dade Government Center until we get answers.

Location: Government Center
111 NW 1 Street
Miami, Fl.

We’d like to thank all of you for supporting us in our fight to find Lily and for keeping Lily in your hearts and minds. PLEASE do not stop passing on this blog to all you know! You can also help support the search for Lily by donating to Lily’s reward fund or by purchasing a T-Shirt.

Anyone with information pertaining to the disappearance of Lily Aramburo is urged to contact Private Investigator Joe Carrillo at 305-926-3110 or call Miami Dade Police at 305-418-7200.

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Justice for Renee Thompson

ORANGE PARK — Thursday began sadly with word that 7-year-old Somer Renee Thompson was indeed the girl whose body was found in a Folkston, Ga., landfill the day before.

To read the entire article, click the link below:

Search for clues continues at scene near where Somer Thompson disappeared | Jacksonville.com.

A bank account has been set up for the family in the name of Somer Thompson. Anyone interested in assisting the family with expenses related to Somer’s death can do so at any area Vystar Credit Union. The account number is 0702794000.

Somer Renee Thompson memorial wall on Facebook

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Amber Alert Issued for Florida Child Somer Renee Thompson

An Amber Alert was issued today for a missing 7 year old Florida girl, Somer Thompson. (pictured below)

somer-thompson

Second grader Somer Renee Thompson did not return from her Clay County school on Monday afternoon. She lives in the Grove Park neighborhood and was seen a few block from her home at about 2:45 p.m., according to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.

In a news release issued about the girl’s disappearance, the sheriff’s office said Somer’s mother was walking through her neighborhood looking for Somer when she flagged down a passing deputy and reported the 7-year-old child was missing. Somer had reportedly been walking home with her sister and friends but ran ahead of them heading toward home.

The sheriff’s office issued this description of Somer:

* 7 years old

* White female

* 3 feet, 5 inches tall

* 65 pounds

* Brown hair in pony tail

* Last seen wearing a cranberry colored jumpsuit with pink striped sleeves

Anyone with information is asked to call the Clay County Sheriff’s Office as (904)264-6512. UPDATE: The phone number of Clay County Sheriff’s Office has been updated to 1-877-227-6911

To read the entire article, go here: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091020/ARTICLES/910209951/1002?Title=Orange-Park-girl-missing

Print a flyer

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Woman missing after arrest in Malibu

Authorities are searching for 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson, who disappeared shortly after being released by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. TODAY’s Matt Lauer talks to Mitrice’s parents and the family’s attorney about the investigation.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Police asked anyone with information on her whereabouts to call Det. Kristin Merrill at the LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit at (213) 485-5381, or 1-877-LAPD-24-7 after business hours or on weekends.

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New Tool to Locate US Missing Persons Online

Attention Miami Dade Police, City of Miami Police, US Law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, victim advocates, volunteers and families of missing persons:

There is an incredible online tool, the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). This online tool allows you to search records of missing persons and unidentified human remains (recovered throughout the country) in an effort to SOLVE CASES. Anyone can search the national database using characteristics such as sex, race, body features and dental information. If you have a missing loved one, MAKE SURE to have their information listed on this FREE database! NamUs has already begun solving cases!

Washington Post article, The NamUs System

“There are perhaps 40,000 sets of unidentified human remains held by medical examiners and coroners across the country, according to government estimates. A patchwork of record-keeping policies govern the related data.

With that in mind, the Justice Department has created the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a searchable database of “unidentified decedents,” in hopes of matching remains to missing persons, an estimated 100,000 of which exist in the U.S. at any given time.

The more information in a NamUs profile, the more likely a match can be made. NamUs has created a five-star rating system indicating how much information is in a file, a hint at how likely it might be that the remains can be identified.”

Early in 2009, I submitted my friend, Lily Aramburo (missing from Miami, FL since June 2007) into NamUs. All the information we had on Lily (including pictures of Lily and her tattoo) was entered; except for Lily’s dental records and NCIC number, which we did not have. Lily Aramburo NamUs profile

In February, while searching the database, I got a match for skeletal remains found in Broward County, FL. I got in touch with the Medical Examiner’s Office and they made contact with law enforcement in Miami Dade. Soon they had the two DNAs compared and were able to get a quick turn around time regarding the results. The University of North Texas and the F. B. I. both had mitochondrial DNA profiles already established. Therefore, based on their unidentified decedent’s profile and Lily’s mom’s profile, the labs came to the conclusion that it could not possibly be Lily.

A short time later, I was contacted by Tony, the Regional System Administrator at NamUs. He said his goal was to make Lily’s file as complete as possible to enhance a resolution. He offered to help get Lily’s NCIC number, as well as working on contacting Lily’s dentist. Thanks to Tony we were finally able to acquire Lily’s NCIC number! The National Crime Information Center number for Lucely “Lily” Aramburo is M497579638. (For some reason, law enforcement didn’t want to share it with us.) We are grateful to Tony and the caring staff at NamUs. Everyone has been so willing to go out of their way to help.

Everyone NEEDS TO KNOW about NAMUS. Law Enforcement and Medical Examiner’s need to know about NamUs. Please make sure to help spread the word! 

Recommended reading:

New Path To Restore Identities Of Missing

Names, the missing matched on NamUs

14 years later, missing Va. boy ID’d via national tool

Families of the missing can search from home

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Family Abductions: The Martinez and Ernst Families

Host Scott Davis of  The Missing TV introduces you to the cases of The Martinez family out of Reno, NV and the Ernst Family out of Ardmore, OK. Also he will revisit the Dr. Stacy Safety Segment where Ben and Karen Gibson will demonstrate backpack safety.

More about the Martinez children abduction:

Ivan, Jakelyn, Megan, and Tyson were allegedly abducted by their mother, Claire Tourand.  www.missingkids.com. An FBI Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution warrant was issued for the abductor on July 14, 2009. They may travel to Mexico. They may be traveling in a white 1998 Mercury Sable with Nevada license plates 369-SDH.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Washoe County Sheriff’s Office (Nevada) 1-775-328-3001

More about the Ernst children abduction:

Joseph and Nicole were allegedly abducted by their mother, Natalya Ernst, on May 19, 2008. An FBI International Parental Kidnapping warrant was issued for Natalya on February 18, 2009. They are believed to be in Russia. Natalya may use the alias first name Natasha and the alias last name Sopova.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Ardmore Police Department (Oklahoma) 1-580-223-1212
or Your Local FBI

For more information, please go to http://www.themissingtv.com/?p=624

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America’s Most Wanted: My Story

WASHINGTON – When an adult goes missing, the case often doesn’t get the same level of attention focused on missing children.

Now, “America’s Most Wanted” is starting something new to give families of those missing adults, help in their search.

Links:

America’s Most Wanted
http://www.amw.com/

America’s Most Wanted | My Story
http://www.amw.com/mystory/

National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
http://www.namus.gov/

About MyStory:
AMW gets hundreds of letters each month from viewers who are seeking justice. Often, AMW is their last hope and the letter they send us might be the most important they have ever written. Like each writer, every My Story is different. Yet they all share a common bond — the search for justice.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/web_links/071709_americas_most_wanted_my_story

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Names, the missing matched on NamUs

National system open to families, investigators
By Jim Balloch

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, is the first national system designed to compare information about unidentified remains with missing persons cases.

Funded by the U.S. Justice Department, it is available, free of charge, to law enforcement and the public, at www.namus.gov.

“This has the potential to truly revolutionize the handling of cases of missing persons and unidentified remains,” said Todd Matthews, the Southeast regional director for NamUs. “It is a huge step forward for investigators, and it gives the families and friends of missing persons a chance to become part of the process of finding their loved one.”

Victims’ families, police agencies, medical examiners, coroners and the general public can search for possible matches between missing persons and unidentified decedents.

To keep ongoing investigations secure, part of NamUs is set aside for law enforcement access only, so investigators can post and share information or details they do not wish made public, Matthews said.

NamUs has two databases: One has information about unidentified bodies, entered from medical examiners and coroners. It can be searched using characteristics such as sex, race, tattoos or other distinct body features, and dental information. The other contains information on missing persons cases.

Law enforcement users will have the ability to automatically cross-reference the two databases, reducing the time it takes an investigator to search them. If a close match is found, the investigator can turn to forensic services to conduct further testing, such as a dental records check or a DNA test.

NamUs only began taking records in January and is still in the growing stages. While the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, will have around 100,000 missing persons cases listed as “active” at any given time, NamUs currently has 1,828 such cases, plus cases of 5,329 unidentified human bodies, according to Justice Department spokeswoman Sheila Jerusalem. But 43 states and 225 law enforcement agencies have started participating, and more are expected to enroll as they become aware of the program, she said.

The News Sentinel asked the Justice Department when and if current cases in the NCIC database would be added to the NamUs system, but that information was not provided in time for inclusion in this series.

To read the article, go to http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jul/19/names-the-missing-matched/

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New missing persons database NamUs starts solving cases

Good article highlighting the benefits of NamUs.  If you have a missing loved one, I highly suggest you create a profile for them on NamUs.

By STEPHEN THOMPSON

NamUs Website

Karen, a homemaker and mother of two from Indiana, has long had trouble falling asleep. About five years ago, to help herself wind down, she started going through missing persons sites on the Web, trying to match a person who had vanished with a John or Jane Doe whose remains had been found but whose name still remained a mystery.

When she started her informal cure for insomnia, Karen had to switch back and forth between an array of various sites – those that had information on missing persons, and those that had information on unidentified remains.

As of this year, Karen didn’t have to switch back and forth anymore. The National Forensic Science Technology Center, which is located in Largo, launched the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs. It contains two databases – one for unidentified remains and one for missing persons – and search engines the general public can use to find a match.

Last month, Karen got a hit on the system, according to officials with the technology center.

In the unidentified remains database, she spotted a sketch of a facial reconstruction performed after a woman’s skeletal remains turned up some five years ago, outside Albuquerque, N.M.

Then she started going through the missing persons database and matched the sketch with the photograph of Sonia Lente, a 44-year-old Native American, who was last seen in the company of a man two years earlier, leaving a bar within city limits.

NamUs, which costs a little more than $4 million and is funded by the National Institute of Justice, solves a few problems, said Kevin Lothridge, chief executive officer for the technology center.

Perhaps most importantly, it centralizes into a single national database information that typically has been scattered among different states and jurisdictions. That allowed a cyber sleuth like Karen to make a match in a missing persons case on the other side of the country.

It is also what Lothridge calls “public addressable,” which means members of the public can access the database and conduct searches, much in the same way they do on Google or Craigslist. Historically, only law enforcement agencies had access to crime-solving databases, and with some databases that is still the case, such as those containing fingerprints and DNA.

Anyone who wants to create a profile of a loved one on NamUs can do so, and the information entered can be anything that identifies someone – a family photograph, a picture of a tattoo, the serial number on a breast implant, dental records, prosthetic devices, jewelry or clothing. The better the information, the stronger the strength of the missing person’s profile, he said.

For example, Jennifer Kesse – who was abducted in Orlando in 2006 and hasn’t been seen since — has an exceptionally strong missing person’s profile, with a score of 5, the highest attainable.

On it her father has noted her eye color can change from green to blue, depending on the kind of contact lenses she is wearing, and that she has a tattoo of a four-leaf clover on her left hip at the panty line. Her profile also has her dental records and notes her DNA is available.

A missing person’s profile is not automatically posted; rather, it is flagged. Then one of the program’s seven regional administrators the country can check with the law enforcement agency handling the missing person’s case to make sure the profile is legitimate, Lothridge said. Once that step is taken, the profile goes online.

Once it is online, a family member – or a cyber sleuth like Karen – can start conducting searches on the site. If, for instance, a mother knows her daughter had a tattoo of a clover leaf on the small of her back, she can conduct a query to see if anyone has turned up who had the same type of tattoo.

“No one wants to find them more than a family member,” said Billy Young, the NamUs coordinator.

If the family member or cyber sleuth thinks he or she has a match, she can then call the regional administrator or the appropriate law enforcement agency and suggest they take the next step – take a look at fingerprints or DNA, if they are available, to see if the presumed match can be corroborated, Lothridge said.

NamUs has odontologists throughout the country to compare dental records. If the DNA of a loved one isn’t immediately available, NamUs will work to get it, perhaps off the missing person’s toothbrush, through an arrangement with the University of North Texas. The university sends kits to the law enforcement agency in charge of the missing person’s case, and an investigator or technician tries to get a DNA sample for the database.

Karen got her match through hardcore sleuthing, but this month NamUs started a program that automatically cross-references information from the missing persons database with information in the unidentified remains database.

The hope is that, as time goes on, more and more cases involving missing persons and unidentified remains will be entered into NamUs. In the United States, there are an estimated 100,000 active missing cases, and more than 40,000 cases involving unidentified remains, according to the technology center.

By comparison, there were only 4,951 unidentified persons entered into NamUs as of May, 2009, and only 1,497 missing persons.

To read the entire article, go to

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/10/new-missing-persons-database-starts-solving-cases/news-scitech/

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Thank You Frank Alvarado and Miami New Times!

Two Years Later: Lilly Aramburo Remains Missing
By Francisco Alvarado
Friday, May. 29 2009

It has been close to a year since I wrote my cover story about Lilly Aramburo, a 24-year-old single mother and drug addict who disappeared from her boyfriend’s apartment June 1, 2007. Today, there is still no trace of her, but friend Janet Forte presses on with her social media crusade to find out what happened to Aramburo.

There has been some progress. Joe Carrillo, a private investigator who helped Miami Police nab the Shenandoah Rapist, volunteered to help Forte track down leads. On a recent afternoon, Carillo met with me to give an update on his investgation, which he is doing free of charge.

A former bodyguard for Latin boy pop band Menudo, Carrillo stands over six feet tall and has a gleaming bald head à la Kojak.

He informed me he believes Christen Pacheco, Aramburo’s boyfriend, had nothing to do with her disappearance. “He was telling the truth when he said Lilly left his apartment after they got into an arguement,” Carrillo notes.

Carrillo says he interviewed two of Aramburo’s friends, who told him about a house at 35 Percival Ave. in Coconut Grove, at the time a known flop house where Aramburo and her pals smoked crack. Carrillo says he recieved another tip that Aramburo, after leaving Pacheco’s apartment, went to that house where she was allegedly killed by three individuals she knew, including a drug dealer who has a murder conviction.

I’ve chosen not to disclose their names until I’ve had an opportunity to verify Carrillo’s claims.

Carrillo says he provided the names of the three men to Miami-Dade Police detectives investigating Aramburo’s disappearance on four occassions. “They haven’t done squat,” Carrillo says.

This Sunday at 6 p.m., Forte will lead a march from CocoWalk to 35 Percival Ave., where she will hold a candlelight vigil in Aramburo’s honor. 

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Florida Police: Get With The Times!

I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time researching missing persons, especially in Florida. I’ve probably visited most police department websites in the state. I leave feeling terribly disappointed most of the time. It’s frustrating to visit a police website for info on their missing person cases only to realize they are nowhere to be found. In the digital age, there’s no excuse for police departments NOT to keep their current Amber Alerts, missing person cases and unsolved homicides posted on their websites. You would think something so important would not get overlooked! On that note, I’d like to share a few examples of what I consider good and bad.

The Bad:

  • City of Miami Police Department: their website has a link to their missing person cases. However, they don’t keep in updated. They’ve been displaying the same 2 missing person cases since 2007! 
  • Miami Dade Police: they update their site from time to time but…(and this is a big one) on their missing persons page, they have NO information about their open/unsolved cases! Instead, they have a handful of links to sites that are not part of MDPD and a search engine below that. 

If police departments want to close more cases they’re going to have to be more effective than the examples above.

The Good:

  • This agency is doing an excellent job integrating news, videos, open missing person cases and their unidentified victims. I’m referring to the one and only Broward Sherriff’s Office. The BSO website is user-friendly and includes news, videos, sexual offender search, missing persons, victim services, safety tips, and more. I appreciate that it’s updated frequently with their current missing person cases and “Operation Found and Forgotten“. This effort by Broward Sherriff’s Office to identify their Jane and John Does can be very effective. They have a much better chance of identifing their victims. Follow this link and look at the photos. (You can report your tips to Crime Stoppers of Broward County anonymously at by calling (954)493-TIPS, toll free at (866)493-TIPS or online at www.browardcrimestoppers.org/webtips.html)

Police should embrace social media wholeheartedly. Using online social networks have many advantages. It’s the most effective way to disseminate information expediently at no cost. You can use the sites to distribute Amber Alerts, missing person alerts, press releases, breaking news, events, crime prevention etc. These social sites allow for people to share information, videos, and photos easily, disseminating information faster than traditional ways. Police departments should be using YouTube as well. 

Take a look at BSO’s site. Follow their lead. Get with times and learn to use social networking sites to communicate and engage!

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Missing Denver Child found thanks in part to the internet!

For those of you who may have doubts about the power of social media (specifically Twitter) please read on. And to those of you who use Twitter, next time you see a missing child or missing person alert, please consider re-tweeting it.

The following article is written by Mari Kurisato from the Denver Examiner.

After nearly a week of being missing, Jennifer Frisina was found safe and returned home to her family, due in large part to efforts like the folks who submitted comments in the original Examiner.com story, Facebook, Twitter, and other internet outlets to raise awareness and keep the pressure on. Even as commenters in the story were asking if this was a hoax, I phoned Arapahoe County Sheriff Investigator Lieutenant Curti looking for Bruce Isaccson to confirm the story. He confirmed the story, and thanked me for my interest, stating that he would get back to me when he knew anything further. Through no fault of his own Lieutenant Curti didn’t get back to me until later that day, but he did call. Though efforts were spreading across the internet, I can only write about what I knew happened. (UPDATED: I’m getting several reports that many others than listed here helped contribute to the effort. This includes @AlohaArleen and @NashvilleDebbi amongst others. This list is by no way inclusive of everyone who helped, just the indiviuals that I saw in the busy rush of events yesterday.) Coordinating with the efforts of other Twitters, including @SoulGeek, @BuzzEdition, @TheExpert @AbsolutelyTrue and most crucially Denver’s own @Zaibatsu, Reg Saddler, people were able to saturate the social media service and catch the attention of CBS 4 News Denver, via @cbs4denver who broadcast the story on the 5 o’clock news yesterday. CBS 4 Denver reporter Terry Jessup reported on that report that the Sheriff’s Office “did receive an unusual amount of what he (the investigating officer) called ‘blogosphere calls’ at the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s office” The alerts continued for some time on Twitter. And then at 7:33pm, Linda Frisina, the family spokesperson and Jennifer’s grandmother, sent this last night via email: She’s been found…details to come I called Linda soon after and got an exhausted confirmation–Linda sounded like she had been fielding calls from the whole planet, and maybe she had been. So I hopped back on the Twitter service, and flashed this out to everyone who had been helping send out the alerts JUST RECIEVED EMAIL FROM LINDA FRISINA THAT JENNIFER FRISINA HAS BEEN FOUND. NO DETAILS YET. which I then forwarded to CBS 4 News’ Assignment Editor Misty Montano who was able to confirm the story and get an update on their 10 o’clock newscast. If anyone had any doubt what role services like Twitter, Facebook, and other internet outlets are playing in cooperative news telling, this story may cast aside some doubt. And because it began with Frank Frisina reaching out, I thought I would let him have the last word, taken from an email sent to me at 3:38 AM: SHE IS HOME! SAFE AND UNHARMED!

To read the full story, go to:

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Missing Children and Take 25 Campaign

May 25th is National Missing Children’s Day . Events are being scheduled across the country to raise awareness about the importance of safety and as a reminder of our nation’s missing children . The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s Take 25 Campaign asks parents to take 25 minutes of their day to talk to your kids about safety.

National Missing Children’s Day is around the corner. It’s a perfect opportunity for law enforcement, public servants, advocates and volunteers to give back to the community. We all know violent crime (kidnappings, sexual assault, car jacking, murder) are a daily occurrence. Every day thousands of children are reported missing. Many are never found. Many of the kidnappings/abductions end tragically in rape, assault and death.

I’m pleased to announce that we will be hosting one of these events for the 2nd year anniversary of Lilly Aramburo’s disappearance, to coincide with National Missing Children’s Day in South Florida. Lilly went missing June 1, 2007 from Miami, FL. She is still missing. More about Lilly Aramburo.

More information about the upcoming safety awareness event coming soon. If you’d like to help out with the organizing/promoting of this event, please contact me or leave a comment on this post (or any post). If you’re a family member of a missing person and would like your loved one featured on our missing persons wall, please contact me or leave a comment. We’d like to partner up with local residents who care about the safety of our children and loved ones, as well as any like-minded organizations. Together we can make a difference.

If you’d like to connect with me on Twitter my feed is here. Please share this blog to help raise awareness about Lilly and other missing loved ones. Don’t forget to Subscribe to the Justice in Miami feed to ensure you don’t miss any news or updates.

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The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

The Justice Department has unveiled a computer database that will help families locate the bodies of lost loved ones.  Families, law enforcement agencies, medical examiners and coroners, victim advocates, and the general public are encouraged to register their missing loved ones with The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), the first national repository for missing persons and unidentified decedent records.

Read more about NamUs in the article below by CBS’ Erin Moriarty called “Justice Dept. Service Is Designed To Help Relatives Find Missing Loved Ones”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/16/earlyshow/main4804584.shtml

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Save the National Center for Missing Adults

Who would you turn to if your loved one went missing? The Police? The mainstream media? If that was your answer you have a rude awakening coming to you. Police departments are either way too understaffed, un-educated or just focusing on high profile cases. If your missing loved one was over the age of 18, police may say they have every right to “disappear”. And the media, you can forget about it, unless your loved one falls into a certain category like Caylee Anthony or Natalie Hollaway, then you’re probably not going to have any luck getting any attention or help from them.

Thankfully, for 15 years there has been the National Center for Missing Adults. The NCMA is a division of the Nation’s Missing Children Organization, Inc. (NMCO) a 501c(3) non-profit organization, formally established after the passage of Kristen’s Law (H.R. 2780) by the United States Congress on October 26th, 2000. The NCMA operates as the national clearinghouse for missing adults, providing services and coordination between various government agencies, law enforcement, media, and families of missing adults. NCMA also maintains a national database of thousands of missing adults determined to be “endangered” or otherwise at-risk in the US. But not for long.

Since 2005, NCMA has been waiting for Congress to reauthorize Kristen’s Act to provide the funding so crucially needed to continue its work. Due to its failure, the country’s only national clearinghouse and missing adult database is in such extreme distress some believe only a miracle can save it. NCMA founder, Kym Pasqualini and her small staff of less than 5 volunteers, have kept the agency alive despite many difficulties including critical shortage and loss of funding, in 2006 they were

financially forced to vacate and close the doors of the facility they had operated from for nearly ten years

and going 2 years without pay and mounting debt, in order to continue providing services to those in need. Time is dangerously close to running out for NCMA. To make matters even graver still, Kym (a single mother) is facing eviction.

This doesn’t seem right to me. Not for anyone but especially not for Kym and the National Center for Missing Adults! The loss of the NCMA would mean no more support for families of the missing!

How can this happen?

Days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast region, Bureau of Justice Assistance; United States Department of Justice (DOJ) requested the immediate assistance of the National Center for Missing Adults. In the weeks following, NCMA received 13,502 reports related to Hurricane Katrina and Rita, in addition to cases normally registered with the agency involving missing adults who are determined by the investigating law enforcement agency to be “at risk” due to diminished mental capacity, physical disability, medical conditions, suspected foul play or suspicious circumstances of the disappearance. NCMA resolved 99.8% of all reports with costs to the agency in excess of $250,000 and depleted the agency’s non-federal reserve of funds. NCMA has only received $50,000 to cover the work they did at the request of the Dept. of Justice. The DOJ still hasn’t released the funds owed to the NCMA for their work related to Hurricane Katrina.

We cannot allow this valuable resource to die.

I feel strongly about this as my own friend, Lily Aramburo, went missing and has been gone for almost 2 years now. Following Lily’s disappearance, I contacted NCMA. Tanya, the volunteer who assisted us, was working from home on these cases because of the agency’s funding situation. Despite these obstacles, she was comforting, professional and understanding. She was steadfast in her efforts contacting law enforcement in order to get Lilly’s case confirmed and didn’t stop until she finally succeeded. I’ve had the privilege of working with Kym and her faithful team of volunteers. I admire them for their selfless efforts on behalf of our missing loved ones and the families who are left behind, searching for them.

My goal is to show Kym that people do care, we recognize their work is valuable. The NCMA doesn’t need to wait for a MIRACLE

It’s within our power to save the National Center for Missing Adults. I urge you to stand with me and help in any way you possibly can. What can you do to help, you ask?

First and foremost they need money! Click on the FirstGiving fundraising widget below and visit my NCMA Fundraising Page Tax-deductible donations can be made online safely and securely through FirstGiving.

The NCMA accepts donations on their website as well. You can give as little as $5 using Google Checkout. Or if you prefer to send a check directly to NCMA, please mail to:

National Center for Missing Adults
PO Box 6389
Glendale, AZ 85312 US

If you commit to giving just $5 (the cost of a Starbucks coffee) we would be that much closer to achieving the goal.

If you can’t give money, no problem. Maybe someone you know can. Share this post via your email list and IM.

Do you use Twitter?

Follow the NCMA! Share this post and ask your friends and followers to retweet it (Join the NCMA RT RALLY starting NOW!).

Are you on Facebook, Myspace, Ning, or other social networking sites?

On Facebook, support the NCMA by setting your status to display a short message with a link to this post. Join the NCMA Facebook Group and invite everyone you know. Use your social networks to spread the word!
You can get your very own fundraising widget or badge to add on your profile and encourage others to do the same.

Do you have a blog or website?

There are several ways to help by using your blog/website:
1. Place the FirstGiving Fundraising Widget or badge on your site
2. Take a few minutes to write a post about the crisis, link to this and include the NCMA donation page
3. Add the NCMA badge on your site

I hope you take this opportunity to turn your compassion into action. Help save the National Center for Missing Adults and prevent thousands of families from being negatively affected.

Here’s an article about Kym Pasqualini and NCMA recently published in the Phoenix Times, “The National Center for Missing Adults’ Funding Was Slashed by the Feds, but Volunteers Are Keeping It Alive” By Sarah Fenske.

Don’t forget to bookmark, Stumble and share this post far and wide! RT on Twitter! Link to post! Get the widget, get the badge, share on your social networks and most importantly, GIVE GENEROUSLY & SPREAD THE WORD!

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Help Save the National Center for Missing Adults

Who would you turn to if your loved one went missing? The Police? The mainstream media? If that was your answer you have a rude awakening coming to you. Police departments are either way too understaffed, un-educated or just focusing on high profile cases. If your missing loved one was over the age of 18, police may say they have every right to “disappear”. And the media, you can forget about it, unless your loved one falls into a certain category like Caylee Anthony or Natalie Hollaway, then you’re probably not going to have any luck getting any attention or help from them.

Thankfully, for 15 years there has been the National Center for Missing Adults. The NCMA is a division of the Nation’s Missing Children Organization, Inc. (NMCO) a 501c(3) non-profit organization, formally established after the passage of Kristen’s Law (H.R. 2780) by the United States Congress on October 26th, 2000. The NCMA operates as the national clearinghouse for missing adults, providing services and coordination between various government agencies, law enforcement, media, and families of missing adults. NCMA also maintains a national database of thousands of missing adults determined to be “endangered” or otherwise at-risk in the US. But not for long.

Since 2005, NCMA has been waiting for Congress to reauthorize Kristen’s Act to provide the funding so crucially needed to continue its work. Due to its failure, the country’s only national clearinghouse and missing adult database is in such extreme distress some believe only a miracle can save it. NCMA founder, Kym Pasqualini and her small staff of less than 5 volunteers, have kept the agency alive despite many difficulties including critical shortage and loss of funding, in 2006 they were

financially forced to vacate and close the doors of the facility they had operated from for nearly ten years

and going 2 years without pay and mounting debt, in order to continue providing services to those in need. Time is dangerously close to running out for NCMA. To make matters even graver still, Kym (a single mother) is facing eviction.

This doesn’t seem right to me. Not for anyone but especially not for Kym and the National Center for Missing Adults! The loss of the NCMA would mean no more support for families of the missing!

How can this happen?

Days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast region, Bureau of Justice Assistance; United States Department of Justice (DOJ) requested the immediate assistance of the National Center for Missing Adults. In the weeks following, NCMA received 13,502 reports related to Hurricane Katrina and Rita, in addition to cases normally registered with the agency involving missing adults who are determined by the investigating law enforcement agency to be “at risk” due to diminished mental capacity, physical disability, medical conditions, suspected foul play or suspicious circumstances of the disappearance. NCMA resolved 99.8% of all reports with costs to the agency in excess of $250,000 and depleted the agency’s non-federal reserve of funds. NCMA has only received $50,000 to cover the work they did at the request of the Dept. of Justice. The DOJ still hasn’t released the funds owed to the NCMA for their work related to Hurricane Katrina.

We cannot allow this valuable resource to die.

I feel strongly about this as my own friend, Lily Aramburo, went missing and has been gone for almost 2 years now. Following Lily’s disappearance, I contacted NCMA. Tanya, the volunteer who assisted us, was working from home on these cases because of the agency’s funding situation. Despite these obstacles, she was comforting, professional and understanding. She was steadfast in her efforts contacting law enforcement in order to get Lilly’s case confirmed and didn’t stop until she finally succeeded. I’ve had the privilege of working with Kym and her faithful team of volunteers. I admire them for their selfless efforts on behalf of our missing loved ones and the families who are left behind, searching for them.

My goal is to show Kym that people do care, we recognize their work is valuable. The NCMA doesn’t need to wait for a MIRACLE

It’s within our power to save the National Center for Missing Adults. I urge you to stand with me and help in any way you possibly can. What can you do to help, you ask?

First and foremost they need money! Click on the FirstGiving fundraising widget below and visit my NCMA Fundraising Page Tax-deductible donations can be made online safely and securely through FirstGiving.

The NCMA accepts donations on their website as well. You can give as little as $5 using Google Checkout. Or if you prefer to send a check directly to NCMA, please mail to:

National Center for Missing Adults
PO Box 6389
Glendale, AZ 85312 US

If you commit to giving just $5 (the cost of a Starbucks coffee) we would be that much closer to achieving the goal.

If you can’t give money, no problem. Maybe someone you know can. Please share this post via your email list and IM.

Do you use Twitter?

Follow the NCMA! Share this post and ask your friends and followers to retweet it (Join the NCMA RT RALLY starting NOW!).

Are you on Facebook, Myspace, Ning, or other social networking sites?

On Facebook, support the NCMA by setting your status to display a short message with a link to this post. Join the NCMA Facebook Group and invite everyone you know. Use your social networks to spread the word! You can get your very own fundraising widget or badge to add on your profile and encourage others to do the same.

Do you have a blog or website?

There are several ways to help by using your blog/website:
1. Place the FirstGiving Fundraising Widget or badge on your site
2. Take a few minutes to write a post about the crisis, link to this and include the NCMA donation page
3. Add the NCMA badge on your site

I hope you take this opportunity to turn your compassion into action by donating to Help Save the National Center for Missing Adults…prevent thousands of families and missing people from being negatively affected and losing their only national resource. You can also help tremendously by signing the Support the National Center for Missing Adults petition.

Here’s an article about Kym Pasqualini and NCMA recently published in the Phoenix Times, “The National Center for Missing Adults’ Funding Was Slashed by the Feds, but Volunteers Are Keeping It Alive” By Sarah Fenske.

Don’t forget to bookmark, Stumble and share this post. RT on Twitter. Link to post. Share on your social networks and most importantly… GIVE GENEROUSLY & SPREAD THE WORD!

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Lilly Aramburo and Missing Minorities Campaign

Dear friends, I was recently surprised to find Lilly Aramburo listed on a site called Missing Minorities Campaign. How awesome! It’s a great site and very helpful for the benefit of missing minorities. As we all know, missing minorities rarely make the news. And if they do, they don’t receive the same type of in depth coverage. (God knows how hard I’ve tried to get media coverage for Lilly!) But with sites like Missing Minorities Campaign and others using the internet to advocate for missing people, the more eyes we have looking out for our loved ones and the better chances we have of finding them.

Although most of us live very busy, sometimes hectic lives, a little time and effort goes a long way. You’d be surprised to know how easy it is to help. As I always do when I find a website, blog or organization doing good works, I stumbled their site, bookmarked it and shared it on Twitter and a few other networking sites and aggregators like Friendfeed. And it really helps! After reading the stories of the missing people on the Missing Minorities site and others, it’s very helpful to DIGG or STUMBLE the story or share on whatever social network and news submission sites you use. I joined their community, as well. After all, that’s what social networking is all about: community.

One last thing, if you use Twitter, please follow the Missing Minorities Campaign.

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Last Day to Vote for National Protocol for Missing And Unidentified Person Cases

Reminder: Today is the last day to submit your vote to Establish National Protocol in Missing and Unidentified Person Cases through Change.org’s Ideas for Change in America. If you haven’t added your vote, please do so now, time is running out! The first round of voting for the Ideas for Change in America competition will end tonight, December 31 at midnight Pacific Time. All you have to do is click on the widget below and sign in or register (it’s easy) and vote!

Establish National Protocol in Missing and Unidentified Person Cases

Every 30 seconds someone in the U.S. disappears, an average of 850,000 persons per year. Of that number, approximately 105,000 remain as open cases, unresolved. There are also unknown numbers of unidentified deceased persons, with estimates as high as 50,000. With modern technologies, available resources and tools, more cases could be resolved. With law enforcement budgets slashed, available training and knowledge of these tools and resources remain out of the grasp of many agencies. Cases go unresolved, family members remain in pain needlessly, criminals go free, and the unidentified deceased are buried and even cremated, taking the answers with them, sometimes forever. The Department of Justice crafted model legislation which would give law enforcement, coroners, and medical examiners the necessary protocol and tools to correct this injustice. Efforts have been made to pass this legislation on a state by state basis, but this process has proven to be slow. Each day that passes without these procedures in place increases the number of missing persons who may never be recovered, and unidentified deceased persons who might never be named. The legislation provides law enforcement with a check list of information to acquire from the family of the missing person, databases and other resources to utilize, such as DNA analysis, and the new NamUs. Coroners and medical examiners are given procedures to report the unidentified deceased, and enter all available identifiers into national databases, such as fingerprints, dental records, and DNA analysis. The text of the legislation can be found here:
http://www.projectjason.org/downloads/ModelLegislation2008Revision.pdf

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