Warning: This article contains information regarding self-harm, suicide ideation, human trafficking, sex trafficking and domestic violence
The Idaho Statute defines a missing person as someone whose “whereabouts are unknown” to someone who has consistent contact with the person such as a parent, guardian or caretaker.
At the time of the public records request received from the Idaho State Police Department on Sept. 27, 2024, authorities reported 75 active missing persons cases. These reports are composed of six different categories: Disability, endangered, involuntary, juvenile, catastrophe victim or other. This signifies that every person who goes missing may have a unique reason for their disappearance.
Teenage Runaways
In 2023, 1,582 teenagers ages 13-17 were reported missing in Idaho.
According to Idaho Statute, a person under the age of 18 who has run away from their parent or guardian is referred to as a “runaway child”.
Idaho Youth Ranch’s Hays House is a 24-hour shelter for children ages 9-17 who are runaways, homeless or victims of abuse or neglect. The Hays House currently shelters 11 children.
Outreach Specialist Janessa Stell explained the primary factors for teenage and children runaways in need of shelter.
“The first things that come to my mind are we see a lot of youth who have experienced a lot of trauma inside the household,” Stell said. “Whether that’s domestic violence [or] assault.”
Stell highlighted that the Hays House works with “displaced youth”, referring to children that aren’t homeless but are instead living with a family friend or extended family.
Program Manager Amy Ornelas said an additional contributing factor for a child or teenager to run away is from experiencing “gender violence”, referring to someone who’s exploring their own sexual identity.
“A lot of times when they experience that in the home, they don’t feel that’s a safe place for them to be, so they run away,” Ornelas said. “They don’t feel like they belong at home, they don’t feel like they’re loved at home.”
Ornelas added that the term violence pertains to emotional, physical or verbal abuse one may receive.
Communications Director of Marketing Whitney Springston highlighted that some of the misconceptions about teenage and child runaways stem from adults’ perceiving them as “bad” kids.
“Kids in a healthy home situation don’t wake up one day and think ‘You know I think I’m going to sleep in the park tonight, that seems like a good idea,’” Springston said. “For whatever reason, I think adults have this perception that these are just bad willful kids who don’t want to listen to mom and dad.”
Stell said teenagers running away is pain based behavior. Pain based behavior refers to certain impulsive actions in response to any physical, mental or emotional pain. These actions can include from suicidal ideation, self-harm, isolation and drug usage.
An additional danger for missing children and teenagers is that they can become a victim of human trafficking. Ornelas explained how runaway teenagers often stay in various houses, but it can bring dangerous consequences
“[It] opens up an opportunity to be taken advantage of for a lot of the youth. All the youth that we serve have not experienced what healthy relationships look like, and so that actually could look like a normal thing for them to do, because they’ve seen mom do it, or a sibling and so to them, it’s not dangerous.” Ornelas said.
Runaway teenagers who stay in houses with people they don’t directly know are at a higher risk of being trafficked.
“They find opportunities for branching out their network,” Ornelas said. “When that happens, they end up trusting people they don’t know and staying at people’s houses that they don’t know very well.”
Another danger of children going missing is the risk of sex trafficking. In 2023, Idaho data from The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) showed that there were around 29,000 missing children cases. The NCMEC received more than 18,400 reports relating to child sex trafficking.
With the struggles runaway youth endure, Springston emphasized the importance of understanding their circumstances.
“We don’t say that there are bad kids, we say there are kids who’ve experienced really bad things and they don’t have the right coping mechanisms or the right tools to deal with that,” Springston said.
Hays House offers support services for their youth, including dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), a form of therapy for those dealing with mental and behavioral health issues. In addition, the Hays House uses equine therapy, which uses horses to help improve kids’ mental and physical well-being through a range of activities. Hays House also has an on-call 24-hour emergency helpline on their website for kids in the Treasure Valley.
Investigative process for recent missing person and cold cases
On Oct. 4, 2024, Ada County Sheriff’s Office announced the closure of a 44 year-old cold case regarding Mary Tracy, who died from a stabbing to the neck and chest at the age of 25. Tracy’s body was found a couple days later near Highway 55 in Garden City, Idaho.
Tracy’s case was reopened in August 2023 after she was last seen in the summer of 1980. Public Information Officer for Ada County’s Sheriff’s Office Lauren Montague shared that one of Tracy’s daughters requested for the case to be reopened.
The case’s reopening process centered around Ada County Sheriffs Office detectives looking over the previous case file, the initial evidence as well as submitting DNA evidence from a sexual assault kit to the Idaho State Police Forensic Lab. Detectives also conducted various follow-up interviews. In the end, Detective Cooper identified a possible suspect, Charles Nicholas Strain, who died in 2007.
Montague explained that the main disparity between “fresh” missing persons cases and “cold” cases, is that cold cases usually have a lower priority of attention whereas missing persons cases require immediate attention, especially for juveniles.
On Oct. 17, 2024, The Star Police Department declared a runaway juvenile missing in the Star, Idaho area. Montague added that because of shared information on social media and a Reverse 911 text, a system that sends automated messages notifying local residents on emergencies such as a missing person, the police found the missing juvenile later that same day.
With technological advancements today, Montague expressed gratitude for the use of social media as a tool to “broadcast information” to the public regarding missing people’s cases.
“I think social media is really huge,” Montague said. “We can’t always access people’s information depending on how locked down their accounts are, so if someone’s calling in, having that ability to have them show us what they posted recently [and] text messages. If someone’s going to call in a missing person, the more information that we have, the better.”
Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project
The Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project (PNWMPP), a non-profit organization, focuses on the search and rescue for cold missing cases in rural parts of states in the Pacific Northwest such as Idaho.
According to the PNWMPP database, 43 Idaho individuals have gone missing since 1911, seven of which occurred in 2020 or later.
Tanner Hoskins, executive director for Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project, said that the organization originated as a Sasquatch research group, but later expanded into missing persons cases after a family friend in Washington reached out asking for help.
Hoskins said that the investigative process can range from a few days to a couple months depending on the information available. The team’s search process primarily occurs in the spring and summer seasons. The fall and winter months can make the search process increasingly more difficult due to the leaves and snow covering up the ground.
Hoskins mentioned that working with local law enforcement and adjusting to different terrains in states like Idaho are the biggest challenges in the search process for missing people. challenges regarding the search and recovery process.
“Most of the agencies that we’ve worked with so far have provided us with information. It’s all when we deploy out to an area, it’s the terrain that’s usually the hardest part of our job,” Hoskins said. “Whether law enforcement wants to assist us or not, we usually know what we’re looking for in the general area that the person was missing anyway. It’s more of us basically telling them, ‘Hey we’re going to be in this area doing this and if you want to assist us or provide us with information, great, otherwise, we’re going to be here.’”
Hoskins added that it’s important for him and his team to be knowledgeable of the terrain before traveling.
Hoskins advises people to be informed of local missing people cases in their area.
“Just gain the knowledge of who is missing in the area, what they were last seen in or with them,” Hoskins said. “Just keep your eye out when you’re out in that area because you really could just solve something for a family that’s been left to grieve.”
To report a missing person, contact the Idaho State Police dispatch at *ISP (*477).
This Post Has One Comment
Thank you for interviewing me about our mission here at Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project (PNWMPP). This was a fantastic article on the subject of missing persons, honored to have been a part of Spencer’s research into this topic. I just wanted to also clarify that our acronym is PNWMPP.
Thank you again!
– Tanner Hoskins
Executive Director, PNWMPP
http://www.pnwmpp.org