Originally posted on 11/20/05
Faces of the missing
November 20, 2005
BY MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter
On June 25, 1983, 18-month-old Vinyette Teague vanished from a hallway at the Robert Taylor Homes while her parents were at a drive-in movie. Her family hasn't seen her since.
Twenty-two years later, Vinyette's mother, Kathy Teague, still dreads Thanksgiving, because it falls the week before what would have been her only daughter's 24th birthday. Every year, the family marks the occasion at Washington Park, where they release balloons -- usually white and red, Vinyette's favorite color -- into the sky.
"From the day she disappeared to now, I still don't know where she is or what happened to her," Teague said. She said the night Vinyette disappeared, she had been left in the care of relatives but got out into the hall. "But I absolutely believe she's still alive. I will never give up trying or hoping until I find her body."
Vinyette Teague is one of 2,344 children in Illinois considered missing as of Nov. 1, State Police said. The total fluctuates as new cases are reported and older ones are resolved, but the number of kids who go missing each year remains about the same, said Lt. Lincoln Hampton, a spokesman for the Illinois State Police.
Law enforcement has reported more than 150 of these cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a non-profit organization that works with families, local police departments and government agencies to track down missing kids. The names, pictures and circumstances of each disappearance are featured on the center's Web site,
www.missingkids.com.
Some faces more familiar
Some children, like Vinyette, have been gone so long, the center posts age-processed renditions of what they would look like as adults. The names and faces of other children, such as Diamond and Tionda Bradley, are instantly familiar because of media attention.
The vast majority of the missing, however, are either runaways or children taken by one or both parents in violation of a custody ruling.
State Police estimate 94 percent of missing children are recovered safely. Only a small percentage are the victims of a long-term, non-family abduction -- the kind in which the child is at the greatest risk for being sexually assaulted or killed.
Still, one night on the streets may be all it takes for a runaway to fall victim to exploitation, said Charles Pickett, a senior case manager for the national center.
"Things you wouldn't do today, you might do tomorrow as you get hungry," Pickett said. "The number of people who prey on [runaways] expands the longer and further away they are from home."
Children abducted by parents or other family members are less likely to suffer violence, but suddenly being cut off from friends, school and familiar surroundings can be traumatic in its own right, Pickett said. Often, parent abductors fabricate stories of abuse or cruelty at the hands of the other parent to turn the child against them.
"I don't know of a single case in my 20 years . . . that it wasn't beneficial to the child and the family to bring them all back together," Pickett said.
Man missing since 1969
The oldest active Illinois case tracked by the center is that of James Howell, who disappeared from his Sterling home in the spring of 1969. He was 9.
Detective Pat Carney, of the Whiteside County sheriff's office, said police still receive occasional tips on the case, but after so many years, the likelihood of finding Howell alive is small.
"But we haven't given up," Carney said. "The folder is on my desk right now, which tells you it's still an active case."
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