National Missing Children’s Day: Help Find Birmingham Kids

BIRMINGHAM, AL - 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 Alabama, at least 70 children have been reported as missing since 1994. In Birmingham, there are still four cases active.

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.

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 Birmingham, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, are these children:

Lareginald Henderson, Age 18: He was last seen March 7, 2018. He is 5'7" and 145 pounds.

Carla Corley, Age 44: Carla's photo is shown age-progressed to 48 years. She was last seen in her house in August of 1980. Later that night, furniture was found overturned, the house doors were wide open, and Carla was missing.

Jakayla Thomas, 18: From Bessemer, Jakayla was last seen on December 1, 2017.

Jesse Weems, 18: Jesse was last seen on April 13, 2018.

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

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images