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Sex trafficking is widespread and labeling our girls as runaways then
closing their case is not a solution to a serious problem. Each case
must be fully investigated with a sense of urgency every time.

The time has long passed for us to sound the alarm for our missing
loved ones. When 1 or 10 girls or any loved one go missing on our land,
in our country, and our nation’s capital, we cannot afford to wait for
mainstream media coverage. We are their coverage, their voice, their
alarm, we are their prayer, and they are counting on us. We must work
tirelessly to ensure widespread dissemination and their safe return.

DETROIT — Teleka Patrick, a missing medical resident, was stalking gospel singer Marvin Sapp prior to her disappearance, according to an area news station.

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based WOOD-TV reported late Thursday that Sapp filed for a personal protection order in Kent County in September. In the court filing, Sapp stated that Patrick, 30, had been referring to him as her husband and had moved from California to western Michigan to join his church, the Lighthouse Full Light Center Church in Grand Rapids.

Her family had previously stated that she decided to attend Kalamazoo’s Western Michigan University for its residential psychiatry program.

Sapp said Patrick had contacted his three children and had been to his home, and that he had “over 400 page(s) of correspondence from her to which I have never responded.” He added that Patrick’s stalking had gone on for at least a year prior to her moving to Michigan.

“Throughout my career, my family and I have fallen victim to inappropriate attempts to contact me by several unknown individuals,” Sapp said in a statement to the TV station Thursday. “As a father of three and pastor of one of the largest congregations in west Michigan, I cannot take this kind of obsessive attention lightly. Given these previous acts, I have taken several security measures, which have included obtaining a protective order to ensure our safety.”

La Mont D. Dottin was a freshman at Queens College when he disappeared Oct. 18, 1995 after leaving his grandmother’s Hollis home to mail a package to his mother, Arnita Fowler, in California.

Ms. Fowler returned immediately to New York and tried in vain to report her son missing but, due to police rules at the time, she was not able to do so. It wasn’t until November 13, 1995, that La Mont had been missing long enough for police to consider him a missing person.

Forced to become a one woman search team for four years, Ms. Fowler discovered that her son’s body was found six days after she reported him missing in 1995 and laid unidentified in a city morgue, until February 1996 at which time La Mont was buried in a pauper’s grave in Potter’s Field on Hart Island. The parents of La Mont was never told of this until September 1999, four years later.

A year after giving their son, La Mont, a proper burial, the family established “The La Mont Dottin Foundation” to serve as an information clearing house committed to assist other families in their search for missing loved ones. The goal of the foundation is to ensure that such families do not endure the same painful journey and to push for legislation reform of the Missing Persons Unit.

The foundation will also provide scholarships to deserving high school seniors majoring in technology and has submitted a proposal to establish a community base technology training cernter that will allow LaMont’s passion for computers to be realized through lives of youth with the same passion.

On Nov. 7, 2013, 28-year-old Jasper, Texas resident Alfred Wright went missing. His body was found weeks later by volunteer searchers frustrated that local law enforcement seemed to have given up. But two autopsies later, there are few answers about what happened to Wright – and now the Department of Justice has agreed to look into the case.

Wright, a physical therapist whose brother Savion was a finalist on the television show “American Idol,” was last seen at a grocery store in Sabine County, according to Chuck Foreman, a private investigator hired by Wright’s family. Foreman says that Wright called his wife and parents to say that his truck had broken down, but when his parents came to pick him up, he was gone.

Local police searched for Wright, a married father-of-two, for only four days, and CBS affiliate KSLA reports that Sheriff Tom Maddox said he didn’t suspect foul play. At the time of his disappearance, Wright was under indictment for allegedly embezzling money when he worked at a bank while attending college in Tennessee.

“They kept saying that it was staged, that he was on the run,” Foreman told CBS News’ Crimesider.

But Wright wasn’t on the run. On Nov. 25, a group of church volunteers found Wright’s body. According to Foreman, Wright was found wearing just his boxer shorts, two shoes and one sock. He says Wright’s scrubs were found on a barbed wire fence nearby. KSLA reports that Wright was found just 150 yards from where sheriff’s deputies originally set up their command post for the search. One of the men who found the body told the station that Wright’s eyes were missing and so was part of his ear.

Foreman, who is the president of the Center for Search and Investigation, a Texas-based group that helps search for missing children, says that local police immediately blamed drugs for Wright’s death, and a county autopsy reportedly revealed the presence of cocaine and meth in his system.

“They kept saying it was drug-induced behavior,” Foreman says. “But nobody ever witnessed him doing drugs, and he has no drug-related criminal history.”

Sheriff Maddox did not return Crimesider’s call for comment on the case.

The autopsy called Wright’s death an accident, but his family didn’t buy it. They commissioned a second autopsy by Dr. Lee Ann Grossberg who announced at a news conference that she has “a high index of suspicion that this is a homicide.”

“This has been the worst investigation I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Foreman, an Army Special Operations veteran. “The sheriff’s department never searched his truck, they never did a neighborhood canvas.”

In fact, Foreman says that it was his own neighborhood canvas that eventually led to the discovery of Wright’s body. Foreman says that when he knocked on the door of a man who owned about 100 acres of land near the store where Wright was last seen, the man told him police had never asked to search his property. Volunteers did, and they found Wright.

Desperate for answers, the Wright family reached out to Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) for help. On January 23, Lee wrote to the Department of Justice asking them to investigate Wright’s death. They agreed, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Texas’ Eastern District told Crimesider that they are “reviewing the investigation.”

One of Rep. Lee’s spokespeople told Crimesider that Lee took interest in the case, in part, because of the history of racial violence in Jasper. In 1998, 49-year-old Robert Byrd was killed near the town after three white men tied him to the back of their truck and dragged him for more than three miles until his head came off.

Wright’s sister told KSLA that she believes her brother was kidnapped, tortured and dumped. A $30,000 reward for information leading to a conviction has been offered in the case.

Carly “Charli” Scott’s mother told police on Monday that her daughter was missing. Scott, 27 and five months’ pregnant, disappeared after she left her sister’s home in the Haiku area of Maui on Sunday night, according to Maui police.

Family members said she left to help a former boyfriend whose car had broken down, The Maui News reports.

Scott’s silver 1997 Toyota 4Runner was completely gutted by fire and was found in Haiku’s Peahi area.

On Thursday, “possible evidence,” was discovered by an individual who was part of a private search party, said the Maui Police Department. Officials did not provide additional information and said the evidence “was recovered by police for further investigation.”

Carly’s former boyfriend, Steven Capobianco, told Hawaii News Now that she picked him up Sunday night and drove him to Keanae — which was several dozen miles away — so he could fix his truck.

Her dog Nala — which was later found in the nearby community of Nahiku according to The Maui News — was with her when she picked him up, he said.

Capobianco, 24, said he fixed his truck and Scott drove behind him to Haiku, but he lost sight of her SUV at some point.

He said he assumed she arrived safely at her destination.

“I sent her a text that said, ‘Thank you’ but I figured she was working, that’s why she didn’t get back to me right away,” he told Hawaii News Now. “It wasn’t until the cops showed up at my house at 5:30 in the morning the next day that I realized something was wrong.”

Capobianco said police questioned him and administered a polygraph test, which he was told he failed. He told Hawaii News Now that he “absolutely” did not hurt Scott.

“I’m honestly not convinced I failed, I think they might have just said that as a tactic,” he said. “But I really don’t know.”

Police have not made any arrests or named any suspects.

Capobianco said he and Scott have been broken up for several years but remained friends and “occasionally hooked up.” He said he believes he’s the father of her baby but doesn’t know for sure.

On Saturday morning, Scott’s sister, Fiona Elyse McKenna Wais, continued to post updates about the search effort on Facebook.

“Please remember any evidence found needs to be treated like a crime scene, avoid entering the area, take pictures and call the police immediately,” she said. “Please be careful with anything found of interest, it could be what finds my sister!”

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A body discovered in a ditch over the weekend is that of a 7-week-old baby who went missing more than five weeks ago, and the infant’s mother has been charged with first-degree murder, Memphis Police said Monday.

The physical description and clothing on the body discovered Sunday in Millington, about a half-hour north of Memphis, matched that of Aniston Walker, who was reported missing Jan. 9, police said in a news release.

Police did not say how the baby died. An autopsy was being conducted Monday.

The baby’s mother, Andrea Walker, told police that Aniston disappeared after she left the baby at home with her 3-year-old child while taking her 5-year-old child to school.

Police said Walker called the child’s father, who does not live at the same address, and he reported the baby missing. Walker then left the house again — leaving the 3-year-old alone in the house for an hour — as she traveled to several locations around the city.

Police Director Toney Armstrong said at the time that Walker was not as forthcoming with investigators as they could have wished.

Before Aniston’s body was discovered, Walker had pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated child abuse or neglect. She was free on $250,000 bond before she turned herself in on Monday.

Calls to Walker’s attorney were not immediately returned.

Back in January, police searched for the baby for three days with no results. Then on Sunday, a motorcyclist stopped on the side of the road in Millington saw the child’s body in a ditch and called police.

“It is heartbreaking to confirm that an innocent child’s life has been taken,” Armstrong said in a statement, “but now family members of Aniston Walker can have closure and begin the healing process of losing a loved one.”

Andrea Walker was charged with two counts: first-degree murder in the perpetration of a felony, to wit, aggravated child neglect or endangerment; and first-degree murder in the perpetration of a felony, to wit, aggravated child abuse.

The filing of an open murder count against Sean Phillips “moves us one step closer to securing justice for Baby Kate,” state Attorney General Bill Schuette said when announcing the charge with Mason County Prosecutor Paul Spaniola.

Phillips, 23, was convicted last year of unlawful imprisonment in the disappearance of Katherine Phillips. She was 4½ months old when last seen in the Ludington area, about 80 miles northwest of Grand Rapids.

Schuette said at a news conference that “new evidence has been discovered which supports a murder charge in this case,” but provided no details, the Ludington Daily News reported.

Phillips was arraigned Friday during a videoconference with Magistrate Patricia Baker, who said she would appoint an attorney to represent him.

Prosecutors said previously that Phillips took the baby from her mother because he feared a court-ordered paternity test would show he was the father. He received a sentence of 10 to 15 years in prison and is appealing.

Katherine’s mother, Ariel Courtland, testified earlier in the case that she last saw her daughter in a car seat in the back seat of Phillips’ car.

The Daily News reported that police found Phillips about three hours after Courtland reported her daughter’s disappearance. Officers found the baby’s car seat and diaper bag in the trunk and found her balled-up, inside-out clothing in his pocket, the newspaper said.

Investigators have said that seeds and other material on Phillips’ shoes could be crucial to locating a body.

Spaniola said that since Phillips’ conviction on the related charge, detectives have spent “countless hours” on the case.

“This continuing investigation has included review of biological evidence, site visits, and the enlistment of experts from all over the world who are preeminent in their fields,” Spaniola said.

Ludington city police and the Mason County Sheriff’s Department worked on the case with help from the Michigan State Police and the FBI.

The open murder charge means a jury can consider both first- and second-degree murder.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Rescue teams fighting bitter cold temperatures worked through the night and planned an expanded search Tuesday for a couple and four young members of their families who have been missing since Sunday, when they went to play in the snow in the mountains of northwest Nevada.

The overnight low dropped to minus-10 degrees in nearby Lovelock, about 100 miles northeast of Reno. Skies, however, were clear.

“It’s got to be brutal out there,” said Mark Turney, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages the land. “Let’s hope they are found quick.”

The children ranged in age from 3 to 10.

The group had not communicated with anyone since they went missing, according to Sheila Reitz of the sheriff’s office. Their Jeep also had not been found.

They had been bound for the Seven Troughs area on isolated federal land, and it was unclear if they were carrying any supplies.

“I’m hoping they all huddled together and stayed in the Jeep,” said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Chuck Allen, who added that the area has spotty cellular coverage. “That would be a best-case scenario.”

A Navy search-and-rescue team and the Civil Air Patrol, an all-volunteer auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, were assisting the sheriff’s office in the search. Additional crews joined the effort on Tuesday, including rescuers from Lander, Douglas and Humboldt counties.

Two planes scoured the area on Monday and three could be dispatched on Tuesday, Civil Air Patrol Maj. Thomas Cooper said. Several inches of snow were on the ground, but the black top on the silver 2005 Jeep could help searchers spot it from the air, authorities said.

“It is a beautiful area out there. Parts of it are extremely remote,” Turney said, noting that most of the roads are dirt and more easily traveled by ATVs or other off-road vehicles.

The Seven Troughs area is named after a series of seven parallel canyons below Seven Trough Peak — elevation 7,474 feet — in the Kamma Mountains stretching north across the Pershing-Humboldt county line.

It’s about 20 miles southeast of Black Rock Desert, where the annual Burning Man counterculture festival is held.

“It’s remote, and it’s rocky,” Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Chris Healy said.

Seven Troughs is a popular area for hunting chukars, a pheasant-sized winter game bird.

“So it’s not the kind of area where there would be nobody around,” Healy said. “But most chukar hunters are smart enough not to go out in the weather we have now.”