Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists and media commentators to denote disproportionate media coverage, especially on television, of missing-person cases toward white females compared to those females of colour or males. The syndrome also encompasses disproportionate media attention to females who are young, attractive, white, and upper middle class. Although the term was coined in the context of missing-person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes. The phenomenon has been highlighted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other predominantly white countries, as well as South Africa.
Ward Francis Weaver III is an American convicted murderer. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for sexual assault, rape, attempted murder, and the murders of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis in Oregon City, Oregon.
Levi Bellfield is an English serial killer, sex offender, rapist, kidnapper, and burglar. He was found guilty on 25 February 2008 of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 23 June 2011, Bellfield was further found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler. On both occasions, the judge imposed a whole life order, meaning that Bellfield will serve the sentence without the possibility of parole. Bellfield was the first prisoner in history to have received two whole life orders.
Ada Chard Williams was a baby farmer who was convicted of strangling to death 21-month-old Selina Ellen Jones in Barnes in London in September 1899.
"Autopsy" is a television series of HBO's America Undercover documentary series. Dr. Michael Baden, a real-life forensic pathologist, is the primary analyst, and has been personally involved in many of the cases that are reviewed.
On 21 March 2002, Amanda Jane "Milly" Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home from school and not being seen since walking along Station Avenue in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, that afternoon. Following an extensive search, her remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Yateley, Hampshire, on 18 September.
On 18 June 2001, Danielle Sarah Jones, a 15-year-old English schoolgirl, disappeared from East Tilbury, Essex, England. There was a large and exhaustive search to find Jones' body and it was considered one of the biggest cases Essex Police had to deal with at the time. Despite the police's best efforts, her body was never found.
Romona Moore was a 21-year-old Hunter College honors student who disappeared April 24, 2003, in Brooklyn, New York. Two months later, her body was discovered outside an abandoned house which an anonymous caller had directed her mother to. Two male suspects were arrested; they were convicted in 2006 of having kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered Moore. The young immigrant from Guyana had been living at home with her parents and relatives before she was kidnapped.
It is possible to convict someone of murder without the purported victim's body in evidence. However, cases of this type have historically been hard to prove, often forcing the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, and in England there was for centuries a mistaken view that in the absence of a body a killer could not be tried for murder. Developments in forensic science in recent decades have made it more likely that a murder conviction can be obtained even if a body has not been found.
Arlene Fraser was a 33-year-old woman from Elgin in Moray, Scotland, who vanished from her home on 28 April 1998 after her two children went to school. No trace of her was ever found, but her husband was convicted of her murder, upheld on appeal.
Victoria Elizabeth Marie"Tori"Stafford was a Canadian girl who was abducted, raped, and murdered by Michael Rafferty and Terri-Lynne McClintic. Her body was found three months later in a wooded area in rural Ontario. The subsequent investigation and search were the subject of massive media coverage across Canada.
Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.
Events from 2002 in England
Trudie Jeanette Adams disappeared in the early hours of 25 June 1978 after attending a dance at the Newport Surf Life Saving Club, New South Wales, Australia. She left the event early before hitchhiking home, at which point she entered a vehicle on Barrenjoey Road and has not been seen since. Her disappearance sparked New South Wales' biggest missing person search at the time, attracted extensive and ongoing national media attention, and eventually a $250,000 reward.
April Sue-Lyn Jones was a Welsh child from Machynlleth, Powys, who disappeared on 1 October 2012, after being sighted getting into a vehicle near her home. The disappearance of April Jones, aged five, generated a large amount of national and international press coverage. Mark Bridger was subsequently convicted of murder.
Since 1996, there has been an unusually high number of cases involving young women disappearing along U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Virginia, or an area known as the "Route 29 Corridor". Five young women disappeared in five years between 2009 and 2014, earning it a particularly notorious reputation. Of the nine murders/disappearances, only the cases of Morgan Dana Harrington (2009), Alexis Murphy (2013) and Hannah Graham (2014) were solved ending in convictions of their murderers, the other cases are sadly still unsolved.
The murder of Kayleigh Haywood, a 15-year-old girl from Measham, Leicestershire, took place in November 2015, following online grooming by Luke Harlow, a 27-year-old man who had contacted her on the social networking website Facebook.
Manhunt is a British television drama based on murder investigations. The first series focused on the true story surrounding the investigation into the death of French student Amélie Delagrange. The subsequent manhunt eventually led to the arrest of Levi Bellfield for Delagrange's murder, and several other high profile, yet previously unsolved cases.
Jessie Earl was a 22-year-old student who disappeared from Eastbourne, England in May 1980. It was not until 1989 that her remains were discovered in thick undergrowth on Beachy Head, where she would regularly take walks. The inquest into her death was criticised and attracted considerable controversy in the long term after it was concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to determine whether she had been murdered, despite the fact that she had been found with her bra tied around her wrists and without any of her other clothes or belongings. Her parents insisted she must have been murdered, but the inquest into her death recorded an open verdict, leading to the key forensic evidence being destroyed in 1997 since the case had not been classed as murder. Despite this, in 2000 Sussex Police opened a murder investigation after further forensic, scene, witness and pathology inquiries, saying that they believed she was murdered.
The Belize Ripper is an unidentified Belizean serial killer responsible for the abduction, rape and murder of five girls in Belize City between 1998 and 2000. Despite extensive investigation, aided by the FBI and Scotland Yard, nobody was ever convicted of the murders, all of which remain unsolved.
