An Amber alert or a child abduction emergency alert is a message distributed by a child abduction alert system to ask the public for help in finding abducted children. The system originated in the United States.
John Edward Walsh, Jr. is an American television presenter, criminologist, victims' rights activist, and the host/creator of America's Most Wanted. He is known for his anti-crime activism, with which he became involved following the murder of his son, Adam, in 1981; in 2008, deceased serial killer Ottis Toole was officially named as Adam's killer. Walsh was part-owner of the now defunct National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C. He also anchored an investigative documentary series, The Hunt with John Walsh, which debuted on CNN in 2014.
The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta child murders, are a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia, between July 1979 and May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested, tried, and convicted of two of the adult murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, or death in a location where they cannot be found, or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. Criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the President of the United States reauthorized the allocation of $40 million in funding for the organization as part of Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. The current chair of the organization is Jon Grosso of Kohl's. NCMEC handles cases of missing minors from infancy to young adults through age 20.
Etan Kalil Patz was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25—the anniversary of Etan's disappearance—as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.
Stranger danger is the idea or warning that all strangers can potentially be dangerous. The phrase is intended to encapsulate the danger associated with adults whom children do not know. The phrase has found widespread usage and many children will hear it during their childhood. Many books, films and public service announcements have been devoted to helping children remember this advice.
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, with a regional presence in the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australasia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, child trafficking and child abduction.
A child abduction alert system is a tool used to alert the public in cases of worrying or life-threatening disappearances of children.
Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.
Michaela Joy Garecht was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue. Sketches of Garecht's abductor were distributed along with missing person flyers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within 24 hours of her disappearance, but search efforts proved fruitless. Her case was featured in national media, including profiles on the documentary series Unsolved Mysteries.
Catherine Irene Jacqueline Meyer, Baroness Meyer,, is a British politician, businesswoman and Conservative life peer. She is the widow of Sir Christopher Meyer, the British former Ambassador to the United States. In 1999, she founded the charity PACT, now Action Against Abduction.
The term international child abduction is generally synonymous with international parental kidnapping,child snatching, and child stealing.
International Missing Children's Day is an international day celebrated on May 25th, the same day as the United States' National Missing Children's Day designated by Ronald Reagan in 1983. It is a day dedicated to raising awareness about the issue of missing children, highlighting the efforts made to find and bring them back safely, and supporting the families affected by these tragedies.
Alicia Kozakiewicz, also known as Alicia Kozak, is an American television personality, motivational speaker, and Internet safety and missing persons advocate. Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Alicia Project, an advocacy group designed to raise awareness about online predators, abduction, and child sexual exploitation. She is also the namesake of "Alicia's Law", which provides a dedicated revenue source for child rescue efforts. Kozakiewicz has worked with television network Investigation Discovery (ID) to educate the public on, and effect change for, issues such as Internet safety, missing people, human trafficking, and child safety awareness education.
Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Jane Gordon were two Australian girls who went missing while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Their disappearance, and presumed abduction and murder, became one of South Australia's most infamous crimes. The presumed murders are thought by South Australia Police and the media to be related to the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is sometimes referred to as the Adelaide Oval abductions.
Beginning in the early 1980s, advertisements on milk cartons in the United States were used to publicize cases of missing children. The printing of such ads continued until the late 1990s when other programs became more popular for serving the same purpose. Contemporary popular media portrayed the practice in fiction, often in a satirical manner.
Sara Anne Wood was a twelve-year-old American girl who disappeared while riding her bicycle home from Norwich Corners Church in Sauquoit, New York. She is believed to have been abducted less than half a mile from her own home by convicted child killer Lewis Stephen Lent Jr.
The murder of Rachael Runyan is an unsolved child murder which occurred in Sunset, Utah, on August 26, 1982, when a three-year-old girl was abducted from a playground and murdered by an unknown individual. Her body was found three weeks later in a creek bed in nearby Morgan County.
The missing children panic was a moral panic concerning child abduction and murder by strangers in the United States. The event was triggered after the abduction of Etan Patz in 1979 and the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh in 1981, with subsequent media reports exaggerating and misrepresenting child abduction statistics. The panic popularized the misleading claim that 1.5 million children per year disappeared or were abducted in the United States, introduced the stranger danger narrative into public discourse and intensified tropes relating to the sexual predation and murder of boys by homosexuals in American culture, especially after the publicization of gay serial killers Ottis Toole, John Wayne Gacy and Randy Kraft.
