MISSING PEOPLE

The numbers are staggering.  Nearly 700,000 people reported missing in 2013. Men, women, and children.  The worst part is not that they are missing but that because of race many never receive the media attention they deserve.  A social bias exists that seems to suggest we feel that "some people" are not worth a news story because they are poor, people of color or are employed in socially unacceptable fields. 

 

Yet, the news is not all bad. An FBI report indicates missing persons reports related to endangerment went down from 2011 and "During 2012, 661,593 missing person records were entered into NCIC, a decrease of 2.5 % from the 678,860 records entered in 2011.  Missing Person records cleared or canceled during the same period totaled 659,514.  Reasons for these removals include:  a law enforcement agency located the subject, the individual returned home, or the record had to be removed by the entering agency due to a determination that the record is invalid."

 

Yet, even that lower reconciled  number is high. Too high. 

 

When people go missing and there is cause to believe they are endangered, nothing should stand in the way of getting those who wait and hope all the help they can to find their lost family member. 

 

"The shocking reason you've probably never heard  of these missing Americans" at http://news.yahoo.com/shocking-reason-ve-probably-never-heard-265-000-195421951.html

 

The National Crime Center and the FBI 

 

The Black and Missing Foundation

Osage Murders of the 1920's

Looking at a crime over cultural or economic divides can be challenging. Secrets, in-crowd status, outsider vantage points become mixed up with things like facts and understanding. They can hinder quick solutions and prosecutions of the guilty.

In the 1920's in Oklahoma a widespread series of crimes occurred targeting members of the Osage Tribe. The cases would result in the first involvement of the new FBI in a murder case.  The cases would highlight the depths to which greed can drive some people and the way that members of Native American society were too often viewed.   Young women were murdered by husbands, strangers and friends to acquire control of their land (headrights).   Others were targeted as well in this mad, greed infused time.

To this day people will recall, in hushed voices, the crimes committed in those days. Small town memories are both long and selective. 

One book on this 'reign of terror' period of history is The Osage Indian Murders.   Another book is The Death of Sybil Bolton, where the author explores the real cause of his grandmother's death.  A follow-up title was Bloodland.  The FBI has digitized files of the investigation available in their 'vault'.