an idea to help find missing persons: what do you think?

[Greyman50]

Course I took was limited to personnel from banks, insurance companies, law firms, credit agencies and a few others. IIRC annual cost was less than $1K but saved days, weeks or months locating people. My boss was former State Trooper who did things old school, was amazed. Guess there are better sites today as things have changed.

 

[glenwolde]

The database exists I think. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

 

[Skeet 028]

Many of the missing...even children...some as young as 12 don't want to be found and even if they are...quite often go missing again... and again. Ask some cops in large cities

 

[Golddollar]

Course I took was limited to personnel from banks, insurance companies, law firms, credit agencies and a few others. IIRC annual cost was less than $1K but saved days, weeks or months locating people. My boss was former State Trooper who did things old school, was amazed. Guess there are better sites today as things have changed.

The last firm I worked for had a subscription to one of these services and it was amazing. One big advantage is you're not restricted to the hours that the courthouse is open. In my 38 years of practice I worked on a lot of foreclosures and quiet title cases and finding people to notify about the suit, or being able to document that we made a proper effort to find people with an interest in the case, was very important. The State of Maryland put Land Records on line so that was sort of a way to merge the new practices with searching through the bound records at the courthouse.

I worked on one quiet title case where we ended up with 8 pages of defendants listed in the caption. I had to track down through a family from 1863. We must have done something right because one of the defendants filed an answer to the complaint and had his day in court. We were guided by a Supreme Court case that has been generically referred to as the "Mennonite" case which established the necessity of giving actual notice to a party before the courts can be asked to deprive a person of his or her property, or showing that a bona fide effort was made to locate parties in interest in a case.

I guess you could say that the "old school" helps to establish who to look for, and the new procedures make it easier to find them.

 

[LVSteve]

It sounds like the OP is proposing a database of investigative methods and "things to look for". I think it's called "training" at Quantico. As for putting it out there for Joe Public to follow and blunder about, I vote no. In most missing persons cases it's best left to the professionals or MYOB applies if the "missing" person has no desire to be found.

Exceptions to this are when LE simply lacks the resources to search large and remote areas. We have Red Rock Search and Rescue here in the Vegas valley, and they have done good work in this area, despite being delayed on occasion by insane bureaucratic requirements. See here. House Report 114-75 - GOOD SAMARITAN SEARCH AND RECOVERY ACT

The attitude of the Inyo County Sheriff's Department was "interesting" when a volunteer group went looking for a missing family of German tourists. See the last installment of this tale. The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans