Are Missing Children Reports Increasing In Houston?

HOUSTON, TX -- The news that a child is missing can send shockwaves through a community, and surely results in panic for that child’s family.

In many cases, the child, especially teenagers, may need time away from a situation they consider volatile, and will vanish for a while, only to return home.

However, others disappear and may never be heard from again. (Sign up for Patch’s daily newsletter for your neighborhood.)

So far, that has been the case for Michael and Pamela Mayfield.

The brother and sister, who were five and six years old at the time, were walking home from Betsy Ross Elementary on Jan. 10, 1985, when they vanished and were never seen or heard from again.

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, there are more than 40 from children the Houston area that have been reported missing.

The vast majority of those reported missing are female, with only seven males listed among some of the missing children.

One of those young men is Justin Seifert, who was only 14-years old when he disappeared in December 2016.

In all there were 19 children reported missing by their families in 2016 who still have not returned home, or been found safe.

And the number of missing children could be higher this year.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports 11 missing children so far for 2017.

Tailer Draper, missing since March 3

One of those is Tailer Draper, 15, who disappeared on March 3 and is believed to be in the company of an older man.

Draper, a student in Humble ISD, goes by the nickname Tai, stands 5-feet, 4-inches and weighs about 120 pounds.

However, there are some of those missing kids who are never entered in the database.
Genesis Cornejo, 15, was one of those children.

In February, Cornejo’s body was discovered in the middle of a southwest Houston street with bullet wounds to her head and chest.

Police would later learn that Cornejo, who’d run away from her Jersey Village home weeks earlier, had been the victim of a satanic ritual killing by members of the MS-13 gang.

Of those reported to the nationwide database, 90 percent are considered endangered runaways, while a small percentage, roughly six percent, are family abductions and about one percent represent non-family abductions.

Statewide, there are nearly 400 missing children listed in the database.

To view these missing children, go to the website for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children by clicking here.

Images: Wikipedia Commons/National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

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