Issue 55 & 56

Our special double issue offers an in-depth look at the issues most important to the eight parents of missing children who helped us create the new multimedia Fifth Edition of When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide. It not only highlights their advice for other parents navigating chaos, but also what law enforcement can learn from their experiences. And we spotlight the new memoir of one of the Guide’s parent-authors, Patty Wetterling (Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope). Patty is a longtime advocate for missing children and who has advised countless law enforcement officers on how to best work with families of missing children. We also talk with Chitimacha Tribal Police Chief Jada Breaux of Louisiana. And we look at a complex case, spanning from New York to Mexico, that was resolved by quick and effective collaboration.

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Features

Person holding a book titled "when your child is missing: a family survival guide" while sitting on a wooden floor.

The (New!) ‘Family Survival Guide’

Hear the powerful stories and lessons law enforcement can learn from the eight parents of missing children who helped us [..]

Photo showing blurred images of walking college students

On the Front Lines: A Textbook Case

Swift action to locate a [..]

Portrait of Chitimacha Tribal Nation Police Chief Jada Breaux of Louisiana

Faces of the AMBER Alert Network: Captain Jada Breaux

New Chitimacha Tribal Police Chief [..]

Cover Story Spotlight: Parent-Authors to Law Enforcement—’We’re Counting on You’

The Family Survival Guide parent-authors—and subject matter experts who work daily to protect children—want law enforcement to weigh these points when working cases involving missing children.

Cover Story Spotlight: About the ‘Family Survival Guide’ Parent-Authors and Their Children

Learn about the eight parents who helped us update the new multimedia fifth edition of When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide.

Cover Story Spotlight: Patty Wetterling’s New Memoir, ‘Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope’

Patty Wetterling may be retired from offering her unique parent’s perspective on missing child investigations for AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) and National Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC) classes—but in a way, she’s still teaching.

Wisconsin police find missing child in 11 minutes with new ‘Project Lifesaver’

Police in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, were training to use a new technology called “Project Lifesaver” when an opportunity to effectively use it in real-time came with the report of an endangered missing child with a medical condition. Officers ended their training session and immediately began a search for the child, who to their relief, had [..]

Artificial intelligence increasingly makes kidnapping scams more believable

Imposter scams have been around for years, such as ones involving callers claiming a grandchild has been in an accident or robbed—and needs money. In those cases, would-be kidnappers pose as the grandchild or use generic recordings of someone screaming in the background. These attempts to extort money weren’t always successful, but federal officials are [..]

U.S. Marshals’ innovative search operation recovers 225 missing children

“Operation We Will Find You” has safely located and recovered 225 endangered missing children, including a 6-month-old infant. Led by the U.S. Marshals Service, which worked with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the 10-week initiative was the first of its kind to involve state and local agencies in 15 areas with large [..]

Indian Country Briefs

Native American Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan cites ‘urgent and critical need’ for MMIP solutions

Native Americans who lost loved ones to violence, or experienced injustice, testified during a Not Invisible Act Commission field hearing in Minneapolis. As part of the federal government’s efforts to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis, Tribal members detailed their emotional losses and the apathy they experienced in trying to get cases [..]

California introduces new Feather Alert

In response to the ongoing crisis of people missing from Tribal communities, California has enacted a new Feather Alert. The statewide notification, similar to an AMBER Alert, can be issued for missing Indigenous people or Tribal members. “We’re hoping it’s beneficial, because we really need it,” said Keely Linton, who heads the Strong Hearted Native [..]

Official: More inclusive alert criteria needed

The death of an Indigenous girl whose body was found on Tribal land near Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, has prompted calls to expand AMBER Alert criteria. The 8-year-old’s body was found five days after authorities conducted a welfare check and began investigating her suspicious disappearance. A Canadian Centre for Child Protection official said that while [..]

OJJDP releases statistics on missing youth

According to a newly released “2022 Missing American Indian and Alaska Native Persons: Age 21 and Under” report from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), of the more than 10,000 cases of American Indian and Alaska Native youth reported missing in 2022, 65 percent were between the ages of 12 and [..]

International Briefs

Near 5-year search for U.S. girl ends in Mexico

The sweet face of 4-year-old Aranza Maria Ochoa Lopez in a “Stay Kind” shirt served as continual motivation for U.S. authorities who worked for nearly five years to find the girl, last seen in 2018 at a Vancouver, Washington, shopping mall. Earlier this year FBI agents got the long-awaited news that Aranza had been located [..]

Kenyan group using age-progression imaging

A child who goes missing at age 4 will look vastly different at age 10, and a Kenyan organization is helping the public see the physical changes. Missing Child Kenya has been using forensic imaging technology to age-progress last-known images of missing children. The group hopes the images used on posters will increase the chance [..]

U.S. foster parent charged in boy’s kidnapping

After being kidnapped by his foster parent and her mother, a 5-year-old U.S. boy was found safe in Vietnam and returned to his biologicalmother in Washington State. Foster guardian Amanda Dinges and her mother, Amber Dinges, fled with the boy after it appeared he would soon be transitioning back to living with his birth mother. [..]

‘Most wanted’ couple captured in Mexico

After an international manhunt, five missing and endangered children from the United States have been safely recovered in Mexico and their fugitive father and his girlfriend apprehended. Edgar Salvador Casian-Garcia and Araceli Medina—formerly on the U.S. Marshals Service’s 15 Most Wanted List—were charged not only with multiple counts of child sex abuse, but also for [..]

AMBER Advocate Magazine