Unreported missing (also known as missing missing [1] ) describes persons who cannot be found, yet have not been or cannot be reported as missing persons to law enforcement, specifically the National Crime Information Center database of missing persons in the United States. The term applies whether the missing person is a child or an adult.
According to Outpost for Hope, people can become unreported missing for a variety of reasons, including: [2]
Another reason missing persons may not be formally listed as missing is that those over the age of majority can be "voluntarily missing." Barring evidence of criminality or being a danger to oneself, privacy and confidentiality laws generally protect the rights of those who elect to remain out of contact with family or friends. If an adult unreported missing person is located in such an instance, the police are not obligated to inform the family of the missing person's whereabouts.
Another example is of children born to homeless parents. These children are sometimes not registered anywhere and can become victims of crimes such as human trafficking or forced prostitution without any of their other relatives or local agencies knowing. A study by professor Kenna Quinet states that the "most successful serial killers know to select the unmissed as victims if they intend to kill for an extended period of time", referring to serial killers targeting transient people, as well as those in institutionalized care, because their absence may not be easily noticed. [1]
Foster children are another source of unreported missing people. [1] [3] In the United States, children in foster care are protected by confidentiality laws; their identity and the fact that they are in the foster care system is private information. In the majority of US states, when foster children go missing their name is not publicly released and, with a few exceptions, child protective services representatives will not speak to the public—in some states, biological parents are not even permitted to contact the news media about their fostered child going missing. Based on 2002 statistics, of the approximately 585,000 foster children in the US, 20% are missing at any given time, with 98% thought to be runaways and 2% (2,340) unaccounted for. [1]
There have also been cases of missing persons reports being accidentally purged from databases, leading to those persons becoming unreported missing. [1]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2018) |
Being unreported puts a person at a higher risk of exploitation than a person who is reported missing. Of the approximately 2,340 unreported missing foster children in the US (in 2002) who are not accounted for, it is estimated that one in five (468) will be the victim of a homicide. [1]
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
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, 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. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2–5% of missing children in Europe.
A Special Victims Unit (SVU) is a specialized division within some police departments. The detectives in this division typically investigate crimes involving sexual assault or victims of non-sexual crimes who require specialist handling such as the very young, the very elderly, or the disabled.
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 Kohls. NCMEC handles cases of missing minors from infancy to young adults through age 20.
Joseph Augustus Zarelli, previously known as the "Boy in the Box", "Boy in a Box", or "America's Unknown Child", was an American 4-year-old boy whose naked, extensively beaten dead body was found on the side of Susquehanna Road, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. Joseph appeared to have been cleaned and freshly groomed, with a recent haircut and trimmed fingernails, although he had suffered extensive physical abuse prior to his death, with multiple bruises on his body. Joseph was also severely malnourished. The body was covered with scars, some of which were surgical. Authorities believe that the cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.
Victim Support is an independent charity in England and Wales that provides specialist practical and emotional support to victims and witnesses of crime.
The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) is a unit of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, based in the Critical Incident Response Group's (CIRG) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC).
Robert Christian Boes Hansen, known in the media as the Butcher Baker, was an American serial killer. Between 1971 and 1983, Hansen abducted, raped, and murdered at least seventeen women in and around Anchorage, Alaska; he hunted many of them down in the wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. He was arrested and convicted in 1983 and was sentenced to 461 years without the possibility of parole. He died in 2014 of natural causes due to lingering health conditions at age 75.
Outpost for Hope is listed nationally and international as an educational and support resource for "under-represented missing persons and those who seek to find them".
Barbara Ann "Bobbie" Hackmann Taylor, also known as the "Tent Girl", was notable as an unidentified homicide victim for nearly 30 years after her body was found on May 17, 1968, near Georgetown, Kentucky. She was referred to as "Tent Girl" because of the material wrapped around her. On April 23, 1998, the Scott County Sheriff's Office announced that this victim had been identified. Hackmann Taylor, born in Illinois, was married and had an eight-month-old daughter when she went missing from her home in Lexington, Kentucky.
Dawn Olanick, previously known as Princess Doe, was a previously unidentified American teenage decedent from Bohemia, New York who was found murdered in Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Blairstown Township, New Jersey on July 15, 1982. Her face had been bludgeoned beyond recognition. She was the first unidentified decedent to be entered in the National Crime Information Center. Olanick was publicly identified on the 40th anniversary of her discovery.
The Bear Brook murders are female American murder victims, two discovered in 1985 and two in 2000, at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, United States. All four of the victims were either partially or completely skeletonized; they were believed to have died between 1977 and 1981.
Marcia Lenore Sossoman (King) (June 9, 1959 – April 22, 1981) was a 21-year-old Arkansas woman who was murdered in April 1981 and whose body was discovered in Troy, Ohio approximately 48 hours after her murder. Her body remained unidentified for 36 years before being identified via DNA analysis and genetic genealogy in April 2018. King was one of the first unidentified decedents to be identified via this method of forensic investigation.
The Redhead murders is the media epithet used to refer to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females in the United States between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The murders may have continued until 1992. The victims, many remaining unidentified for years, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in prostitution.
April Dawn Lacy was a previously unidentified American homicide victim who was discovered in 1996 in Decatur, Texas. She was identified in 1998 after her face was reconstructed and dental information was compared between both subjects. Although her body was identified, her murder remains unsolved. The circumstances surrounding April's murder are unknown, although she is believed by police to have run away from home and may have engaged in prostitution.
Deanna Lee Criswell was an American girl from Washington state who was murdered by firearm at age 16 and remained unidentified for 27 years. Criswell's body was found on November 25, 1987 in Marana, Arizona, near Tucson. The Marana Police Department announced her identification on February 11, 2015, aided by the sophisticated technology of forensic facial reconstruction and DNA analysis, and by websites set up by amateurs to help identify missing and unidentified persons.
Martha Marie Morrison was a 17-year-old American girl who was murdered in 1974, and whose remains went unidentified for over 40 years after their discovery.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is an epidemic of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the FNIM and Native American communities, and a grassroots movement to raise awareness of MMIW through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.
Terry Peder Rasmussen was an American serial killer who killed at least six people in a series of crimes that stretched across the contiguous United States from the late 1970s through the early 2000s. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as "The Chameleon Killer".