Missing and Murdered Women: Law enforcement agency

Showing posts with label Law enforcement agency. Show all posts

Monday, March 8

NamUs Missing Person Database Goes Unused by 93 Percent of Law Enforcement

03.07.10

Since 2009, families and medical examiners have had access to a free online database that's designed to assist in the identification of more than 40,000 sets of unidentified remains across the country. Dubbed "NamUs," short for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the program allows both parties to enter identifying characteristics of a missing person or unidentified body in the hopes that this information exchange will help match a face to a fate.

It's a grim consolation for those whose friends or families have been affected by violence or accidents. Nevertheless, the Associated Press reports that the free service has helped solved 16 cases since the cross-matching feature went live in July of last year. The numbers don't end there: the service is home to around 6,200 unidentified sets of remains, 2,800 missing people, and--according to The Crime Report--has been accessed (on the missing persons front) by more than 185,000 people as of January 2009.

What's the problem? According to the AP, only 1,100 of the nation's 17,000 law enforcement agencies, or 6.5 percent, are registered with the service. That's partly a publicity issue, as numerous law enforcement agencies simply don't know the service exists. Others are more leery about using limited resources to participate in the service.

That doesn't sit well with Janice Smolinski, sponsor of the "Billy's Law" bill that aims to encourage wider use of the NamUs system. If passed--it's already received House approval and remains pending in the Senate--the bill would generate $10 million in annual grants for law enforcement agencies to both train new users and help them resource the data entry process of adding new details to the system. The bill would also allow for an annual grant of $2.4 million to keep NamUS, as a whole, up-and-running.

As for how the system actually works, NamUs profiles are rated based on a one-to-five star system. A one-star profile contains scant details about a person: perhaps a name, or the location where they disappeared, but that's it. A five-star profile is the whole kit-and-caboodle, with a full swath of details and identifying characteristics, as well as a picture or rendering of a person's likely image.

According to The Crime Report, there's currently no mandate that forces law enforcement to database details about a 21-or-over missing adult. Billy's Law won't change that aspect of the system, but it will allow the database to link up with the National Crime Information Center Missing and Unidentified Person File database in hopes that this could increase the detail of NamUS profiles (or, conversely, fill out the system with more.) Similarly, law enforcement will be required to submit missing persons reports for children (21-and-under) to the NamUs database.

For Smolinski, the legislative victory would be bittersweet. She remains confident that the NamUs database will give her the details she needs to close her own case--that of her son, Billy, who went missing in Connecticut in 2004.

Sunday, March 7

Database Can Crack Missing Person Cases, If Used

Image via Wikipedia

Minnesota AP News

STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ― A new online database promises to crack some of the nation's 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families, but only a fraction of law enforcement agencies are using it.

The clearinghouse, dubbed NamUs (Name Us), offers a quick way to check whether a missing loved one might be among the 40,000 sets of unidentified remains that languish at any given time with medical examiners across the country. NamUs is free, yet many law enforcement agencies still aren't aware of it, and others aren't convinced they should use their limited staff resources to participate.

Janice Smolinski hopes that changes — and soon. Her son, Billy, was 31 when he vanished five years ago. The Cheshire, Conn., woman fears he was murdered, his body hidden away.
She's now championing a bill in Congress, named "Billy's Law" after her son, that would set aside more funding and make other changes to encourage wider use of NamUs. Only about 1,100 of the nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide are registered to use the system, even though it already has been hailed for solving 16 cases since it became fully operational last year.

"As these cases become more well known, as people learn about the successes of NamUs, more and more agencies are going to want to be part of it," said Kristina Rose, acting director of the National Institute of Justice at the Justice Department.

Before NamUs, families and investigators had to go through the slow process of checking with medical examiner's offices one by one. As the Smolinski family searched for clues to Billy's fate, they met a maze of federal, state and nonprofit missing person databases that weren't completely public and didn't share information well with each other.

NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, allows one-stop sleuthing for amateurs, families and police. Anyone can enter all the data they have on a missing person, including descriptions, photos, fingerprints, dental records and DNA. Medical examiners can enter the same data on unidentified bodies, and anyone can search the database for potential matches that warrant further investigation.

So far, about 6,200 sets of remains and nearly 2,800 missing people have been entered, said Kevin Lothridge, CEO of the National Forensic Science Technology Center in Largo, Fla., which runs NamUs for the Justice Department.

Detective Jim Shields of the Omaha, Neb., Police Department hadn't heard about NamUs until he saw a presentation at a conference in 2008. He then had a local volunteer associated with NamUs input his data on several missing people.

Among them was Luis Fernandez, who had been missing for nearly a year before his family went to police in 2008. Shields didn't have a lot on Fernandez, a known gang member who'd been in and out of jail — only gender, race, height, weight, age and some data on his tattoos.

It proved to be enough. Just a few weeks later, similarities were spotted with the unidentified remains of a homicide victim found in a farm field in Iowa in 2007. In January, a lab informed Shields it had a DNA match — and that he could break the news to Fernandez' family.

"I could say fairly certainly that this would never have been solved if not for NamUs," Shields said.
Some other recent successes:
— Paula Beverly Davis, of the Kansas City, Mo., area, had been missing for 22 years until a relative saw a public service announcement on TV in October for NamUs and told her sister, who gave it a try. Among the 10 matches her sister found were a body dumped in Ohio in 1987 that had the same rose and unicorn tattoos as her sister. DNA tests confirmed the body was Davis.

— Sonia Lente disappeared in 2002. Last June, an amateur cybersleuth with the Doe Network, a nationwide volunteer group that helps law enforcement solve cold cases, noticed similarities between Lente's description in NamUs and an unidentified body found near Albuquerque, N.M., in 2004. Dental records later established it was Lente.
Detective Stuart Somershoe of the Phoenix Police Department said his agency, which has over 500 open missing persons cases, just finished entering 100 cases into NamUs. He's hopeful his department can make a match.

"It's kind of time-consuming but I think it's a worthwhile program," Somershoe said.

NamUs grew out of a Justice Department task force working on the challenge of solving missing persons cases. One need that the task force identified was to give people who could help solve cases better access to database information.

"Billy's Law" sailed through the House late last month and is pending in the Senate, where supporters are confident it will easily pass.

The bill would authorize $10 million in grants annually that police, sheriffs, medical examiners and coroners could use to train people to use NamUs and to help cover the costs of entering data into the system. It would also authorize another $2.4 million a year to run the system and ensure permanent funding.
The bill would also link NamUs with a major FBI crime database that's now available only to law enforcement, partly because it contains sensitive information about ongoing investigations. That confidential data would be withheld from NamUs when necessary.

Billy Smolinski, of Waterbury, Conn., was last seen Aug. 24, 2004, when he asked a neighbor to look after his dog. His pickup truck was later found outside his home, though not where he usually parked it. His wallet and other belongings were still inside.

The Smolinski family first struggled to get police to take a missing adult case seriously. It took a long time for investigators to finally conclude Billy had been killed, perhaps as a result of a love triangle gone sour. The family put up reward posters, searched places where they thought his body might have been hidden and kept pressure on police.

Smolinski said she came to see how police were often overwhelmed, but to her NamUs is a "no-brainer."

"If they find remains I'm hopeful they'll identify him through NamUs," Smolinski said.
___
On the Net:
National Missing and Unidentified Persons System: http://www.namus.gov

Sunday, August 9

Is a trucker responsible for missing women on Highway of Tears?

By Keith Bonnell, Canwest News Service
August 9, 2009 3:05 PM

Police investigating the disappearance of missing and murdered women across this country are being urged to take a long, hard look at the trucking industry, following an FBI investigation that has linked serial killings to long-haul truck drivers in the U.S.

It's a call that Angela Marie MacDougall is taking across Western Canada — and one that's being echoed by an international expert on serial killers.

MacDougall is the executive director of Battered Women's Support Services in British Columbia, and she has been touring the Prairie provinces for the last two weeks, speaking with women's support groups, sex-trade workers and relatives left shattered by the disappearance of their loved ones.

She's trying to form a coalition to bring forward a report this fall on the disappearance of women in Canada. Some have placed the national numbers in the hundreds.

"There is a sickness within our society that grinds down the lives of aboriginal women," said MacDougall.

It's a problem that has plagued the Prairies, with advocacy groups saying the streets in cities such as Winnipeg are no longer safe — as others question whether serial killers are to blame.

B.C. police have the Missing Women's Task Force; Alberta police have the Project Kare task force; and Mounties in Manitoba announced last week they will review decades' worth of cold cases where the victims were women, looking for any possible links.

On her tour, MacDougall is taking with her a report released earlier this year by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, explaining the work done in the U.S. to link truck drivers to serial killings.

Analysts have compiled a list of more than 520 homicide victims who have been found along or near highways in more than 40 states, as well as a list of 200 potential suspects.

"The suspects are predominantly long-haul truck drivers," the FBI said this spring in its report publicizing the Highway Serial Killings initiative.

It said the victims, many of them drug addicts and prostitutes, are often picked up at truck stops, sexually assaulted, murdered, then dumped along a highway.

So far, 10 suspects believed to be responsible for 30 killings are in custody, the FBI said.

The FBI uses a massive database for violent crimes. A unit of 23 analysts goes through the system, looking for links among crimes that have been submitted by state investigators.

Last year, the FBI took the program online, making it available to law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. But participation is still voluntary, so much of the agency's work is convincing police forces across the country to use the program.

FBI unit chief Michael Harrigan said there's no systemic problem with the trucking industry.

"It's an honourable profession," he told Canwest News Service. "These are a very, very small minority of individuals."

Still, MacDougall said the report should serve as a wake-up call in Canada, a country where there are roughly half a million licensed truckers on the road.

Thoughts immediately come to mind of the so-called Highway of Tears, a 700-kilometre stretch of road that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert, B.C.

RCMP say 18 women are missing from the area, while Amnesty International attributes 32 missing persons cases to the area, all women, most of them aboriginal.

"A truck driver can pick up a woman in one state and take them to another state and dump them," MacDougall said, adding the FBI report shows predators could find the industry's working conditions ideal for committing their crimes.

If long-haul truck drivers are behind any of the missing-women cases, it would instantly reframe the issue as a Canada-wide problem, rather than a province-by-province phenomenon.

"It's our intention to encourage law enforcement, and encourage the (trucking) industry to take some responsibility for ensuring women's safety," she said.

"We're also talking about women who got away from long-haul truck drivers," MacDougall said, adding she knows of eight B.C. women who she said have been attacked, but escaped.

The RCMP in Manitoba have said there is no evidence to support the theory that the province's unsolved homicides are linked, let alone that truckers are behind any of them.

The RCMP also analyze violent crimes with the help of a database

The VICLAS database, or Violent Crime Linkage System, is meant to help officers search for possible serial criminals — including killers.

"All law-enforcement agencies in Canada contribute to this VICLAS," said Sgt. Line Karpish.

"Right now, we have no reasons to believe that our homicides are linked to other cases," she said, adding: "I'm not going to get into the specific occupations of those that could be travelling criminals."

But, if they haven't already, Canadian police should at least consider a link between long-haul truck drivers and the disappearance of women, said Steven Egger, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

"It's something they should look at," said Egger, author of The Killers Among Us, a exploration of serial murder, who consulted with the Alberta task force on missing women.

"It's something they might want to check with the FBI and check if it has any fit with what they're looking at," Egger said, adding it was very possible the force has already considered such a scenario.

The group that represents the trucking industry in Canada said it hadn't heard of the FBI report.

"Like any population, could there be a serial killer (among) truck drivers? Sure," said Doug Switzer, a spokesman for the Canadian Trucking Alliance. "Who am I to argue with the FBI?"

But he stressed that, just because there could be killers among the ranks of Canada's truck drivers, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the industry itself.

"It's not that truck drivers are by nature serial killers," said Switzer. "Serial killers are dysfunctional people. . . . There's something very wrong with them that makes them serial killers."

He said he wasn't aware of his organization being approached about potential serial killers by police.

"There's no particular efforts that are made within the trucking industry to look for serial killers," he said.

The Manitoba RCMP's decision to review cold cases stretching back to the 1960s has raised speculation that one or more serial killers could be responsible.

But MacDougall, who has spent two decades working with abused women, including sex-trade workers, said the truth may be something less sensational, far more prevalent, and just as dark.

"We like to think that there's some abhorrent individual who's out there killing women," she said. "It's much harder for us as a society to understand that hatred of women . . . is deeply entrenched in our society.

"There are men who seek out young aboriginal women to beat and rape and pay them."

© Copyright (c) The Province

Saturday, July 18

'Information detective' tries to restore names to the missing

KnoxNews.COM

Ky. 'Tent Girl' started man's quest to help families find peace

By Jim Balloch
Posted July 19, 2009 at midnight

LIVINGSTON, Tenn. - One Halloween night many years ago, a man named Riddle told a 17-year-old boy a chilling, true tale of murder and mystery.

As the boy grew into a man, the story was the foundation of the mission he chose for his life: to bring light into the dark corners of the criminal justice system, where the dead languish unclaimed in morgues around the country because they have lost their names as well as their lives.

"I feel this is my calling," said Todd Matthews, 39, the father of two boys and husband of a very patient woman.

Today, Matthews is Southeast regional coordinator for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or www.namus.gov . It is a new federal program designed to aid law enforcement - and involve the public - in identifying John or Jane Does and connecting them with some of the nation's estimated 100,000 active missing persons cases.

But for years, Matthews and a few other dedicated private citizens with similar quests labored alone.

His obsession

The roots of Matthews' quest are near Georgetown, Ky. There, on May 17, 1968, well driller Wilbur Riddle uncovered the corpse of a woman wrapped in green tent canvas.

Her right hand was clenched, as if she had tried to claw her way out of the material. She had no identification, and authorities guessed she was about 16 years old.

In newspaper stories, she became known as "The Tent Girl."

Riddle later retired and moved to Livingston, about 20 miles north of Cookeville. On Halloween 1987, Matthews was in the Riddle household for the first time. He was visiting their daughter Lori, whom he later married. That was when he heard of the Tent Girl and how she was buried without a name.

"Everybody loves a mystery, I guess, but that story really grabbed hold of me," he said. "It definitely changed my life forever."

He was driven to find out who she was and, perhaps, who killed her. He relentlessly pursued information about the case, devoting nearly all his spare time to scouring newspaper stories for missing persons cases and talking to law enforcement agencies.

He even spoke with the funeral director who had buried the girl.

"He just got so wrapped up in it, sometimes he forgot he had a family," Lori Riddle said. "We were spending money on gas, on travel, sometimes we had $300 or $400 phone bills at a time when both of us were making an hourly wage."

She says she understands what drives him.

"He has always been a tender-hearted man, very tuned in to emotions and how other people feel," she said. "And he lost a brother and a sister when they were babies, so he knows what it feels like to lose a loved one."

"But at least I know where they are and I can go visit their graves," he said. "These (unidentified) people are all somebody's loved ones who don't get to do that, don't even know where they are."

The Tent Girl identified

In 1992, he acquired his first computer and networked with other private citizens interested in cold cases. He tirelessly searched Web sites devoted to missing person cases and set one up for the Tent Girl.

In the meantime, he had seen an FBI report that a piece of cloth found with Tent Girl was possibly a baby's diaper. He began to suspect she might have been a mother, and perhaps older than originally thought.

Late one night in 1998, he saw a post from Rosemary Westbrook of Benton, Ark., who was trying to locate her missing sister, last seen in Lexington, Ky., around 1967. The description and other details matched the Tent Girl case. He contacted Westbrook, and together they compiled enough facts for an exhumation.

Tests confirmed that the Tent Girl was Westbrook's sister: Barbara Ann Hackman Taylor. Matthews had it right: She was 24, not 16, and she was the mother of a little girl.

Taylor's husband, a carnival worker who had since died of cancer, had told people she ran off with another man.

CBS' "48 Hours" broadcast the Tent Girl story. The Matthewses watched it in their living room.

"I thought it was all over," she said, referring to her husband's quest.

But it was just beginning.

Even before the show ended, Todd got calls from people wanting him to help find a missing loved one.

"I had started this from the standpoint of someone who was dead, and now I was starting to hear from people on the missing side," he said.

Unable to say no, he formed a Web site devoted to missing persons and unidentified remains cases. Later he merged that into The Doe Network, a larger and more technically proficient site that has been credited with putting names to more than 40 previously unidentified bodies.

Everyone deserves a name

Out of the Doe Network arose a related project, Project EDAN, or Everyone Deserves A Name, through which certified forensic facial reconstruction artists donate their time and service to difficult cases.

Matthews' work with Project EDAN took him to Campbell County. In 1997, the body of a murdered woman was found off Interstate 75. Detective Eddie Barton, now retired, had contacted Matthews after learning of the Doe Network. Barton was searching for someone, anyone, who could help with the vexing case.

"We had exhausted all the resources we had," he said. Although it later turned out the woman had once been fingerprinted, those prints had not been sent to the FBI's National Crime Information Center system.

Through the facial reconstruction arranged by Projct EDAN, the woman was eventually identified by fingerprints in another database. Her name was Ada Elena Torres Smith, reported missing in Texas.

Her killer was never found. Barton said he suspects a connection between her murder and that of a black woman, unidentified to this day, who was found in the same area close to where Smith was found.

"It was Todd's group that led to the identification," Barton said.

Many police officers are reluctant to include civilians in their investigative process. But Barton said that once he talked with Matthews, "I knew he wasn't some kook who was trying to dabble in law enforcement. He has put a lot of time and effort into what he does."

Matthews readily states he has no desire to get into law enforcement and does not consider himself an investigator.

So, exactly what is he, then?

After thinking for a few seconds, he says: "Information detective." By that, he said, he means one who gathers and links information to give to law enforcement.

Because of his successes, Matthews was just one of two civilians with a seat on a federal advisory board that eventually led to the creation of NaMus. For now, he has temporarily shifted gears. He is putting much of his time into contacting law enforcement agencies and telling them about NaMus and its cost-free availability as an investigative tool.

But he still finds time to scan his computers, searching for that one scrap of information or lead that can put a real name to a John Doe, which in turn may lead to the solving of a crime.

"I'm so used to it now, it's just an everyday thing for us," Lori Matthews said. "And I am just so proud of him. He is doing something that is really good. It means so much to the families of the missing persons. He will never give it up, and I couldn't ask him to."

Jim Balloch may be reached at 865-342-6315.

NamUs - National Missing and Unidentified Persons System

Project EDAN - Everyone Deserves A Name

TentGirl

External Link:
Sketches express softer side of missing women

Thursday, June 11

Missing persons website adds new hope

Posted By Bobby Roy
Posted 1 hour ago

Every family’s worst nightmare is to hear that a loved one has gone missing, and going through every waking moment worrying about where they could be isn’t easy.

In the every missing persons case, closure is what the family and friends connected to them want and with a help of a new tool, giving the stricken family members and friends closure will be easier to do.

A new website designed to work with the public’s help is hoping to bring some much needed closure to the families of missing persons.

“We have started a website called albertamissingpersons.ca as a new tool for both the public and police to help close missing persons cases,” said Camille Fedoruk, research analyst for Project KARE.

According to kare.ca Project KARE is an investigational unit, created with the highest priority to examine the deaths of several “High Risk Missing Persons” who have been found in the surrounding rural areas of the City of Edmonton. One of the objectives of Project KARE is to investigate all leads, capture and prosecute the person(s) responsible for these crimes.

The new website has been launched with the help of Law Enforcement Agencies and Alberta Medical Examiners to profile the 300 plus missing persons that have been reported in Alberta so that either they will be found alive or their remains can be identified.

“So far I’ve put about 180 of the missing person cases on the website along with seven or eight unidentified human remains cases,” said Fedoruk.

The website contains brief but important verification information about each missing person in hopes that someone out there looking at the site can identify a missing person or unidentified human remains. Each case can contain a photo of the missing person, how long they have been missing for, physical descriptions, where they were last seen, a recent photo, and who to call. Fedoruk along with Cst. Kay Vera and Cst. Roland Mislk were out at the Leduc Scale on June 3 for the Driver Appreciation barbeque to help spread information about the website.

The scale is located on the QEII highway, south of Leduc.

“It takes just one phone call and the trucking industry has such an exposure on the highways.

“A lot of these individuals who go missing lead a high risk lifestyle and that’s why we’re here. Hopefully it might jog someone’s memory,” said Fedoruk.

The website has already had success in British Columbia where a man who had been missing since 2000 was identified through some human remains that someone had seen on the website.

“Just by using one word, like a tattoo, a certain piercing, birthmark or a fracture it makes it easier to identify a person,” said Fedoruk.

“These missing people all have a dad, a mom, a brother and all they want is some sort of closure even if it the worst possible scenario and by launching this website it definitely gives the public and police another tool to help solve these cases,” said Fedoruk.

Anyone who has any information in regards to a missing person is asked to

call the investigating agency for each

missing person that can be found on the newly launched website albertamissingpersons.ca or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

© 2009 , Sun Media

Sunday, April 5

Making A Difference - Patty Beeken

Making A Difference
By: Kristy Brannen
OMAHA FAMILY

Patty Beeken

A little more than 10 years ago, Patty Beeken, LPN, president and co-founder of 4thekids Missing Kid Services, experienced something that changed her life. Her then 17-year-old daughter went missing.

I was frantic, Beeken said. “You are terrified when you realize that your child is not where they are supposed to be and you don’t know when or if you will ever see them again,” she said. Since her daughter, Jessica, had been staying with her father in Lyman, Nebr., Beeken went to the local
authorities there for help.

She explained that the law enforcement officers in Lyman were very helpful until they learned that Jessica was likely in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Then Beeken encountered a frustrating obstacle. The Cheyenne authorities were not nearly as helpful as Beeken expected. “They kept telling me that because Jessica was 17 they were basically not very interested in going out of their way to find her,” she said. “I heard. ‘She’s going to be 18’, more times than I care to say.”

At a standstill, Beeken wasn’t sure of her next step. By doing a little digging herself, Beeken was able to identify the general location of where Jessica was staying. After three months of turmoil, Jessica decided to return home. “I was elated that she was safe, but also very angry that she would do that to us,” Beeken said. “Kids do stuff and don’t think about the impact or the pain and worry they cause.”

Using her experience to help others While searching for her daughter, Beeken turned to her late friend, Dean Powers for comfort and help. Powers developed a web site with Jessica’s picture and information that could be printed out in a flier format. Beeken sent the link to anyone she could, who in turn could forward the information to others or send her pertinent information.

“By the time the web site had been up for three weeks, we had over 10,000 hits,” she said. “I had tons of emails from people. Some of them from people who just wanted to tell me what had happened when their child ran way or just to say they were sorry she was missing.”

Through the web site and e-mails, she also began to realize how caring people are to others in need. “One woman from Indiana wrote to me to tell me she had been driving to Denver and that every rest area, truck stop, or gas station that she had stopped at along the way now had Jessica’s flier hanging in there,” Beeken said.

After seeing how powerful this web site had been, Beeken and Powers decided to expand their efforts. Beeken credits Powers, who died in 2002, with making 4thekids a reality. “He was the driving force to help us get started,” she said. “After Jessica was found, we talked a lot about what could happen if we organized the power and interest that was taken in her case.”

In the last decade, the organization has changed dramatically. It started as a small e-mail list that was used to simply pass along missing child information and eventually became a national organization.

“We went from being a small information e-mail list to a full-blown organization with a board of directors, web site, and a team of investigators who work for free,” Beeken said. “We have worked close to 200 missing child cases.”

Providing parents with alternatives Beeken remembers the helpless feeling she had when her own daughter was missing. It is that feeling that she hopes to help families in similar situations overcome by providing local resources. They are not alone, Beeken said. “When my child was missing in 1998 there were very few resources for me to turn to,” she said. “I did contact the National Center For Missing and
Exploited Children, but having someone right here to talk to and tell me what to do would have been a God-send.”

When parents contact 4thekids, they give the organization permission to give and receive information to local officials. The director of investigations reviews each case and determines if the organization can help. If 4thekids can help, it assigns an investigator to work closely with the parents and appropriate law enforcement agency to follow up on leads and get media coverage. When the child is located, the
investigator notifies the law enforcement agency, which in turn, picks the child up and contacts the parents.

“My wish is that nobody feels as alone as I did when my child was missing,” Beeken said. She also hopes that more families utilize 4thekids’ free services. “I know there are many missing children from this area. I need to find a way to make sure there are more families out there that know we are here and will help.”

A different purpose 4thekids has provided Beeken with a sense of purpose that she hadn’t experienced before. “I am happy when we are able to help parents,” she said. “I honestly wish we could make more of an impact.”

Leading the organization has provided her with an opportunity to work on projects she would not have otherwise known about and make friends with people she would have otherwise never met. Through the years, I’ve never stopped learning, she said.

Beeken is a mother of four and grandmother of five. She has been involved with beta testing the Missing Person database at the new NaMus site for the Department of Justice and also is a volunteer and area director for Nebraska and Colorado for the Doenetwork, an international organization for unidentified and missing people.

APRIL 2009 • OMAHA FAMILY MAGAZINE
WWW.OMAHAFAMILY.COM
4thekids – 4thekids Missing Kid Alert System
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/4thekids/
NamUs National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
http://www.namus.gov/
The Doe Network “International Center for Unidentified & Missing Person”
http://www.doenetwork.org/

MISSING PIECES INTERVIEW WITH PATTY BEEKEN
http://missingpieces.mypodcast.com/2007/01/Missing_Pieces_Episode_21_Guest_Patty_Beeken-24699.html