National Missing Children's Day: Help Find Arizona's Kids

PHOENIX, AZ – Every 40 seconds, the time it takes to heat up a slice of pizza in the microwave, a child is reported missing somewhere in America. Some are runaways, but others are abducted. Most have come home alive, due in part to efforts like those taking place Friday, May 25, on National Missing Children’s Day to reunite kids and their families. In Arizona, at least 247 children have been reported missing since 1994.

That’s according to a database kept by the Polly Klaas Foundation that includes the names of more than 9,800 children reported missing from 1994-2017. The foundation is named for the California 12-year-old who was stolen from her home on Oct. 1, 1993, by a knife-wielding intruder who interrupted a children’s slumber party and carried her away. Her body was found nine weeks later, on Dec. 3, 1993.

The actual number of kids who are reported missing every year is hard to calculate, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, established in 1984 to provide a coordinated national approach to find missing kids.

Because some children are never reported missing and others, like repeat runaways, are entered in the FBI National Crime Information Center each time they run away, there’s no way to reliably know how many children are missing. (Get Phoenix Patch's real-time news alerts and free morning news letters. Like us on Facebook. Also, download the free Patch iPhone app or free Patch Android app.)

Since its founding nearly 35 years ago, the NCMEC has assisted in the recovery of more than 260,000 children. But some have never been found. Still missing in Arizona, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, are these children who have disappeared this year:

This is Marisa Barber from Tucson. She was last seen on April 18 – just five days before she turned 17-years-old. She has blue eyes and brown hair with red streaks. She is 5'4" and 200 pounds. She may still be in the area.

Adriena Best is 17-years-old and disappeared from her Phoenix home on April 22, She is biracial – white and hispanic – and is 4'11" and 101 pounds. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She may have traveled to Youngstown, Ohio.

Lilliana Dalton disappeared from her home in Tucson on February, 9 – less than two months before she turned 12-years-old. She is 5'2" and 100 pounds. She has brown hair and hazel eyes.

The nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established by parents like John and Revé Walsh, whose 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted from a Florida shopping mall in 1981 and later found murdered.

Before the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children existed, police could enter information about stolen cars, guns and other items on the FBI’s crime database, but not stolen children. The Adam Walsh disappearance was among several tragic cases that illuminated the need for a nationwide, coordinated system to address the problem of missing children.

Others included Etan Patz, a 6-year-old who vanished from a New York street on the way to school in 1979. Over the next several years, 29 children and young adults reported as missing were found murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1982, West Des Moines, Iowa, paperboy Johnny Gosch, 12, never came home from his paper route. His disappearance remains unsolved.

Former President Ronald Reagan was an honored guest when the NCMEC opened its doors in 1984. A year earlier, he had proclaimed every May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day.

Since then, the Department of Justice has annually commemorated National Missing Children’s Day with a ceremony honoring heroic and exemplary efforts of agencies, organizations and individuals to protect children, and to coordinate efforts to reunite missing children with their families.

The problem of missing children is particularly acute in California, which accounts for nearly half of the missing children cases documented on the Polly Klaas Foundation website. The states with the most missing children reports since 1994 are:

California: 4,541
Texas: 489
Florida: 364
Arizona: 246
New York: 223
Washington: 218
Ohio: 209
Colorado: 183
Illinois: 177
Georgia: 171
Oregon: 153
Pennsylvania: 153
Nevada: 150
Michigan: 130
Indiana: 124

Beth Dalbey wrote and reported much of this story. Colin Miner contributed some reporting.

Photo by Lightspring / Shutterstock

Photos of children via National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.