Lost and Found
How technology, tips, and plain old luck help police solve most missing-person cases
Missing and action
High-profile cases of missing children and adults have often spurred congressional action.
Charles Lindbergh Jr.
ABDUCTED: March 1, 1932, from home in New Jersey
LEGISLATION: Congress moved to establish federal jurisdiction over interstate kidnapping cases. The Lindbergh baby was found dead near the family's home. The case was solved in 1935 but endured as perhaps the nation's best-known kidnapping case.
Etan Patz
ABDUCTED: May 25, 1979, in SoHo, New York
ACTION: The public outcry over Etan's disappearance became a catalyst for a missing children's movement. Etan's case prompted the appearance of photos of missing children on milk cartons. He was declared legally dead in late June.
Adam Walsh
ABDUCTED: 1981 from a Hollywood, Fla., shopping mall and later murdered.
LEGISLATION: Congress ordered law enforcement agencies to enter missing children in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. In 1984, Congress launched the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Polly Klaas
ABDUCTED: 1993 and then murdered
ACTION: Two months after Polly's abduction, Congress passed the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, which made international child abduction by a parent a federal offense. Klaas's killer, Richard Allen Davis, was sentenced to death.
Kristen Modafferi
DISAPPEARED: The 18-year-old disappeared in San Francisco in June 1997.
LEGISLATION: In a bill known as Kristen's law, Congress created a national center for missing adults. It also authorized the attorney general to make $1 million grants for four years to public and private agencies to find missing persons over 18.
On the missing trail
Advances in forensic technology have enabled police to solve even the most vexing cases.
LEADING EDGE. Age-progression technology produced from a photo at age 3 a composite of Katrina Mattson at 7 (center) that closely resembled how she looked when found at the age of 8.
RECONSTRUCTION.
Working from a skull, investigators use clay to depict how the person might have looked. Then they create a composite photo to compare it with a missing person.
With Michael Schaffer, Randy Dotinga and Ingrid Lobet
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