by: Marti Talbott
It happens at all hours of the day and night people are there, and then suddenly gone. Some leave behind evidence of what happened, but most do not. Take the case of Jerry Strege for example. Jerry's father couldn't figure out why his son wasn't answering the phone, so he went to his apartment. When his father arrived, the door was unlocked, the lights and the TV were on and Jerry's belongings, wallet, keys and cell phone were still there. Even both cars were still in the garage. What his father didn't find were any signs of foul play no blood, no evidence of a struggle and nothing missing. That was in October of 2002 and no one has seen or heard from Jerry since. But did Jerry simply walk away from his life and start fresh somewhere else? Not likely, according to his friends. He was looking forward to an amateur golf tournament the next weekend.
In 2001, 840,279 adults and children were reported missing and entered into the FBI's National Crime Information Center. Nearly a million people lost in the United States in one year? Where are these people and why aren't we hearing more about this very serious problem?
Perhaps the answer lies in the overwhelming statistics... there are so many, we've stopped actually hearing the missing people reports. We care, but what can we do? Unless it's someone in our area, we can't volunteer to search, there's no point in putting more pressure on police and in a few days the press will drop the case and let us go back to our peaceful lives anyway. But wait, there is something we can do.
The Internet has a network of sites that help the families of missing people. Usually, these sites include posters that are easy to print out and all they ask of us, is to put those posters where people will see them. It's a small price to pay. After all, the statistics show this could happen to us too.