Kyron Horman, now gone almost five years, is one of
41 names listed on Oregon's missing children website.
The youngest is a 1-year-old girl who disappeared in Portland on Oct. 3, 2000, and is thought to be in Mexico.
The longest is a 17-year-old boy last seen in Seaside during Weston High School skip week on May 11, 1968.
Nationally, the
FBI National Crime Information Center logged a total of 466,949 children under age 18 reported missing in 2014.
Most kids are found within hours or days and returned home quickly,
says Robert Lowery, vice president of the Missing Children Division of
the
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Cases like Kyron's that go on for years without a trace of the child
are becoming more rare, Lowery said. The 7-year-old disappeared from
Skyline School in rural Northwest Portland on June 4, 2010.
Read: Timeline of events
Lowery credits better technology for the trend. Police have many more
ways to rapidly distribute a photo of a missing child compared to the
center's early days in the mid-'80s when their photos were first
plastered on the sides of milk cartons.
Amber Alerts now go straight to cellphones. Faces flash on highway
billboards. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter carry those
faces to mobile phones. Plus, many children have their own cellphones,
which can be tracked if they disappear. And video surveillance cameras
capture the movements of all who come within their lens whether near a
business, home or, in some cases, a school.
The missing
Most of the children
reported missing are runaways, with the next largest number abducted by a
non-custodial parent or people who knew the child, according to the
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Stranger
abductions are rare.
Since 2005, the center has analyzed more than 9,000 child abduction attempts and found that:
-- 73 percent involved a suspect driving a vehicle
-- 34 percent occurred between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
-- 32 percent occurred when the child was traveling to or away from school or a school related activity
-- 68 percent involved girls
-- 39 percent involved children between the ages of 10 and 14
There also seem to be fewer cases of stranger abductions, Lowery
said. Offenders in recent years have changed their methods, instead
luring kids through the Internet, according to the national center.
The recovery rate of missing children was 62 to 64 percent when the
center was first established in 1984. Today, it's 97 to 98 percent,
Lowery said.
He called Kyron's disappearance "a very unusual one'' because the
second-grader disappeared from an elementary school when a lot of people
were around for a science fair.
That no witness has come forward, at least publicly, who saw Kyron
leaving the school grounds is "particularly perplexing,'' he said.
"The fact remains we don't know what happened to Kyron,'' Lowery said.
But it's imperative, he said, to keep the Portland boy's name in
front of the public and continue to search for him or his remains.
"We won't close a missing child's case until that child is physically
found,'' he said. "Even though the circumstances seem very dire,
children like Elizabeth Smart or Shawn Hornbeck – those children have
taught us we can't give up hope.''
Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City on June 5, 2002. Nine months later, she was found alive about 18 miles from her home.
Shawn Hornbeck was
11 on Oct. 6, 2002, when he was kidnapped while riding his bicycle near
his home in Richwoods, Missouri. He was missing for over four years
before being discovered on Jan. 12, 2007, in the apartment of a man
named Michael J. Devlin. A missing 13-year-old boy also was found in the
apartment.
"Someone out there knows what happened to Kyron. That person needs to
come forward,'' said Lowery, who was in law enforcement for more than
27 years and in 2011 co-authored a Law Enforcement Guide to Case
Investigation for Missing and Exploited Children. He's served as an
assistant police chief in a St. Louis suburb and worked the majority of
his career as a homicide detective and a commander of the Greater St.
Louis Major Case Squad, a homicide task force.
Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill and Sheriff Dan
Staton have declined to answer questions about the status of their
investigation into Kyron's Horman's disappearance.
But a joint news release they issued last week said the
investigation remains active
with a sheriff's detective "primarily assigned'' to it. A retired FBI
agent who has years of experience working on a Child Abduction Rapid
Deployment Team also continues his involvement in the case, reviewing
evidence that has been collected. More than 4,000 tips have poured into
the Sheriff's Office since the beginning.
Also last week, the Sheriff's Office reached out to the National
Center for Missing & Exploited Children to help create a new image
of what Kyron would likely look like now at age 12, Lowery said.
"As they grow, we use the pictures of siblings and their parents, and
our artists use a combination of art and science to develop a composite
sketch,'' Lowery said. "We need the public to continue looking for
Kyron. He could be out there.''
Searching for the boy should remain a priority, he said. "An arrest is secondary,'' he said. "We want to find Kyron Horman.''
Any law enforcement-led searches in recent years for Kyron likely
have been more intelligence-based, meaning they're in response to
information gathered from specific leads or tips that need to be
checked, Lowery said.
Marc Klaas, president of the KlaasKids Foundation that works to
support families of missing children, said the pain of not knowing
what's happened to your child is wrenching.
Klaas' 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnapped from her bedroom at
knifepoint during a slumber party at her Petaluma, California, home in
October 1993. Richard Allen Davis, a wanted man, had sneaked into the
Klaas home, tied up the girls and kidnapped Polly. On Nov. 30, 1993,
police arrested Davis for a parole violation. His palm print had been
found in the girl's bedroom. He confessed to the killing and burying the
body in a shallow grave. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
Before his daughter was found, Klaas said police told him that he'd
eventually have to get used to the idea that his daughter was dead.
Klaas, unwilling to accept that, challenged them to "show me proof''
before he'd believe it.
"Kyron's family right now is in a never-never land,'' Klaas said,
"not 100 percent sure he's alive or dead and hoping beyond hope that
he's alive.
"I know the deep psychic emotional emptiness that these parents go
through because I went through it myself. It cuts to your core,'' he
said.
The case probably isn't getting full-time attention from
investigators, he said. "I would guess that it's colder rather than
hotter. You've got to be realistic. Law enforcement has limited
resources.''
That's why, Klaas said, the family's role is so crucial – to be an
advocate, put pressure on police and keep their child's name in the
public. His foundation has sent trained professionals to help searches
organized by Kyron's mother, Desiree Young.
"Kyron's parents are just left in limbo, suspecting everything but
knowing nothing,'' he said. "It's agonizing, but you have to go on. You
don't have any choice, and that's what your child would want.''
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
