Missing Children

[Monkeypoo]

There's a few things in life I will just never ever ever be able to comprehend, and after what happened to little 2nd grader Sandra Cantu from Tracy CA just recently, my heart (along with thousands of others all over the country, all over the world) is so sad and sickened this week, and deeply goes out to the Cantu family. What the hell goes through the mind of someone who would abduct a child, kill her, put her in a suitcase and throw it in an irrigation pond? Why? It's insane. Pure evil insanity at its very worst. I can't fathom the mentality. I never will. I also cannot fathom the amount of grief the Cantu family must be feeling. Every time something like this happens, my mind flashes back to the other little children who fell prey to the same thing. Polly Klaas, Adam Walsh, Jon Benet Ramsey, the little girl in Florida most recently (her name escapes me) and hundreds and thousands of others. Every time something like this happens, I find myself clingy towards my daughter and grandbaby. I pray they find the sick sonabitch who did this, and I hope they find him/her fast.

The statistics are mind-boggling and terrifying:

http://www.kidsearchnetwork.org/researc ... stics.html

Research and Statistics involving Crimes Against Children and Teens

The Kidsearch Network believes that Immediate Response by an experienced search team is necessary because, 1) there is typically over a two hour delay in making the initial missing child report (60%), and 2) the vast majority (74%) of the abducted children who are murdered are dead within three hours of the abduction. (Source: Attorney General of the State of Washington, who did a study of cases reported to law enforcement in 1997)

There are estimated to be about 100 cases per year in the US where a child is abducted and murdered. The victims of these cases are "average" children, leading normal lives, and living with normal families, typical low-risk victims. The vast majority of them are girls (76%), with the average age being slightly over 11 years of age. In 80% of cases, the initial contact between the victim and killer is within 1/4 mile of the victim's residence.

Over half (57%) of these child abduction murders are committed by a killer who is a stranger to the victim. Family involvement in this type of case is infrequent (9%). However, the relationship between the victim and the killer varies with the gender and age of the victim. The youngest females, 1-5 years old, tend to be killed by friends or acquaintances (64%), while the oldest females, 16-17 years old, tend to be killed by strangers (also 64%). The relationship between the killer and victim is different for the male victims. The youngest male victims (1-5 years old) are most likely to be killed by strangers (also 64%), as are the teenage males (13-15 years old, 60% and 16-17 years old, 58%).

The average age of killers of abducted children is around 27 years old. They are predominantly unmarried (85%) and half of them (51%) either live alone (17%) or with their parents (34%). Half of them are unemployed, and those that are employed work in unskilled or semi-skilled labor occupations. Therefore, the killers can generally be characterized as "social marginals."

Almost two-thirds of the killers (61%) had prior arrests for violent crimes, with slightly more than half of the killers' prior crimes (53%) committed against children. The most frequent prior crimes against children were rape (31% of killers) and other sexual assault (45% of killers). Sixty-seven percent of the child abduction murderers' prior crimes were similar in M.O. to the murder that was committed by the same killer.

Commonly, the killers are at the initial victim-killer contact site for a legitimate reason (66%). They either lived in the area (29%) or were engaging in some normal activity. Most of the victims of child abduction murder are victims of opportunity (57%). Only in 14 percent of cases did the killer choose his victim because of some physical characteristic of the victim. The primary motivation for the child abduction murder is sexual assault.

After the victim has been killed, 52 percent of the bodies are concealed to prevent discovery. In only 9% of cases is the body openly placed to insure its discovery.

A unique pattern of distance relationships exists in child abduction murders. The initial contact site is within 1/4 mile of the victim's last known location in 80% of cases. Conversely, the distance between the initial contact site and the murder site increases to distances greater than 1/4 mile (54%). The distance from the murder site to the body recovery site again decreases, to less than 200 feet in 72 percent of cases.

It was discovered that once the murder investigation has begun, the name of the killer is known to the police within the first week in 74% of cases.

While at times the media seems to "get in the way," in the end they are much more likely to have a positive effect on the investigation (31% of cases) than a negative one (6% of cases). In short, the media are more likely to bring witnesses forward than to aid the killer in his escape. The media had no effect at all in 63% of the investigations.