Friday, February 04, 2000
Most missing children are runaway teens
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Most missing children are teen-agers and are missing by choice.
Though FBI officials reported that there were an estimated 850,000 missing children in 1998 — the most recent year available — most were runaway teens, with only about 5,000 believed to have been abducted.
• In Ohio there were 16,298 reports of missing children reported during 1998, according to officials from the state's Missing Children Clearing House. That total includes multiple reports for the same children. There were 8,888 girls reported missing and 7,410 boys.
• In Kentucky, the most recent year available was 1998, when 6,872 children were reported missing, including multiple reports. There were 4,140 girls reported missing and 2,732 boys. Of the 6,872 children, 6,710 were eventually located.
• In Indiana 15,562 children were reported missing in 1998, including multiple reports. No breakdown according to sex was available.
More than 600,000 abduction attempts are made on children each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Each day, 2,300 children are reported missing and entered into the FBI's computer system.
One of the more notable local cases involving a missing teen is the unsolved disappearance of Erica Lee Fraysure, a 17-year-old Kentucky high school student who disappeared Oct. 21 1997.
Erica was a senior at Bracken County High School about 50 miles south of Cincinnati.
Months after her disappearance a private lake near Brooksville was dredged because of a psychic's appearance on Montel Williams' TV talk show. The psychic said Erica's body was in the water. The private lake off Ky. 1159 is about two miles from where Erica's car was found.
But the search proved fruitless, as have the more than 250 interviews conducted by the Kentucky State Police.
One person questioned about Erica's disappearance was Christopher Dean Mineer, who later shot his fiancee and then himself Sept. 25, 1998.
But police said Mr. Mineer had been ruled out as a suspect before his death because his alibi checked out.
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