by John Edward Gill
The National Center is a non-profit, non-law enforcement agency funded with $8 million annually from the federal government and approximately $8 million or more from private donations. Founded by Walsh in April, 1984, with a White House Rose Garden ceremony hosted by then-President Reagan, the National Center classified Huels as an NFA although there was no evidence someone grabbed her.
In 1997, it also classified Reale as an NFA, although again without proof.
But, as with every missing child, Walsh and his National Center never investigated Huels' and Reale's disappearances.
Such sloppiness and indifference about missing children makes child abduction seem much larger than it is. After all, the National Center started because Walsh and many others claimed in 1981 that there were 50,000 stranger abductions of children each year. While a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles in The Denver Post pointed out that the 50,000 figure was false, the Justice Department still funded the National Center. It did so, also, without an incident study to determine exactly how many children really were missing, whether as runaways, family abductions, or stranger abductions.
Even police questioned that figure. "We lost 50,000 soldiers in Vietnam over 10 years," said William D. Carter, a public affairs specialist with the F.B.I. "Most people know someone who died there. How many people know someone who has had a child abducted?"
A New Jersey officer agreed. "Stranger abduction was the impetus behind the creation of the National Center," said Investigator Martha Maxwell, a missing and exploited children's specialist for the Ocean County, New Jersey, Prosecutor's Office. "Without that, there wouldn't be a National Center."
Finally, in 1990, the Justice Department released a study which said there were only between 200 and 300 such abductions. More recently, a Washington State Study on child abduction murders found that about 50 to 150 children were abducted by strangers each year.
"The list of children who are abducted and killed each year by someone who is not a family member is relatively small," said Christine O. Gregoire, Attorney General of Washington State, who headed the three-year study.
Released in May, 1997, Gregoire's study found that local law enforcement agencies conducting immediate searches was the best way to find and recover stranger-abducted or lost children.
And that National Center itself, in referring to the Washington State study, even stressed that the first three hours were the most important and that many abducted children are killed during that time.
"The vast majority of abducted children who are murdered are dead within three hours of the abduction," said Carol Monaco, editor of its newsletter, The Frontline, in the fall of 1997.
She didn't say what her agency could do in just three hours, especially since it's in the Washington, D. C., area and has no search-and-rescue personnel.
The National Center doesn't conduct local searches and investigations and doesn't follow-up on many cases it claims are stranger, or non-family, abductions, as with Huels and Reale. Consequently, it often doesn't know what really happened.
Tinze Lucinda Huels ran away.
No one abducted her. That night in October, 1984, she went to a Tampa, Florida, nightclub, then left her car and started hitchhiking. She worked as a waitress in Memphis, Tennessee, for three years before moving to Arkansas. Shortly afterwards, she married a new man and took on a different name.
But in April, 1992, her new husband went to police with suspicions about his wife. Huels then admitted that she had left home voluntarily because of problems with her marriage. Police notified authorities in Florida and Huels called her first husband and their children.
Four newspapers in Florida and the Mid-West carried her story.
Yet as of this writing, eight years later, Walsh and his National Center still claim Huels as an NFA and list her case as "open" on their Case Manager's Contact list and in their Missing Children Forum on the Internet.
And, although claiming it's concerned with "exploited" children, National Center officials still ignore child abuse, which takes between 1,000 and 2,000 children a year. As with Susan Smith's children, they prefer to falsely classify abused children as abductions or lost child cases.
Alexia Reale died of child abuse.
Her poster, as of this writing still on the National Center's Internet website, describes her as "last seen in the Elk Grove area of California... She is considered to be at risk," again listing her as an NFA as of June 1, 1997.
But in June, 1999, police arrested her mother and stepfather and charged them with murdering the little girl. A California Superior Court Judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to make them stand trial, even though no body had been found. Alexia's 13-year-old sister described to authorities how the child died and how her remains were destroyed.
Articles in The Sacramento (California) Bee described Reale's case during the fall of 1999.
Trial dates were set for August 3, 1999, then changed to October 26, 1999, because the child's mother pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Now a third trial date is pending.
Yet, despite these charges, that National Center continues to list Alexia Reale as a Non-Family Abduction on the Internet.
These two cases are not isolated.
An extensive investigation of the National Center's own recovery reports for the past seven years shows that the agency distorts many cases, claiming abduction when children perished because of accidents, child abuse, domestic violence, date rape and homicide, or simply became lost. This reporter found more than 100 cases that were distorted.
According to newspaper reporters and police, F.B.I. agents and state and local police and sheriffs actually look for children, questioning suspects and searching neighborhoods or rural areas, which Gregoire's study recommended.
National Center personnel don't join in those searches.
Four children vanished in Illinois during September, 1990, for instance, and the National Center said they were Non-Family Abductions. But they surfaced several weeks later with their mother, who filed for divorce from their father, claiming abuse. Local police didn't make her return home.
National Center officials not only still claimed her children as stranger abductions, but said they'd "recovered" them. And they listed the "recovery" date as November 5, 1990, which was about a month after their mother went to police.
There are cases where children drowned, no remains were found, yet local police with search dogs determined those children died accidentally. However, the National Center still claims such youngsters as "abductions" and their cases open.
For example, a two-year-old girl in Montana vanished in April, 1980. Her single mother left her outside -- unsupervised -- for an hour and the child disappeared. Local sheriff's deputies searched for days and decided she'd drowned in a nearby raging, swollen river. Bloodhounds had followed her scent from her home to that river. They also said there was no evidence of an abduction.
Yet the National Center and Advo, the Connecticut-based mail order company, distributed her photo-aged picture on 57 million postcards in 1994, more than 14 years after she drowned. She's on their Internet site today, still called an NFA and her case open.
"They're distributing pictures of deceased children and asking for money to find them," said Nikki Abbott, founder of Services for the Missing, in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. "That's immoral and unfair."
There were distortions of different kinds in those recovery reports.
In April, 1992, a little girl in Indiana perished at the hands of her uncle. Walsh said he'd "recovered" her and that she was an NFA, taken and killed by a stranger, not a family member.
A seven-year-old girl in Florida disappeared in November, 1994, shortly after the Susan Smith case. Police suspected her parents killed her, but Walsh ignored them. "It drives me crazy when police and the media speculate about what might have happened," he said. "The girl is missing...And that's all that matters to me."
He quickly filmed a segment for "America's Most Wanted," but never aired it because police soon found her remains and arrested those parents. A jury found them guilty of murder and they were sentenced to life in prison. National Center officials still claimed they had "recovered" her and listed her as an LIM (Lost, Injured, or Otherwise Missing) even though she'd been killed in her home.
They treated Susan Smith's children the same way. First, they claimed her two boys were abducted, then said they were "lost" when law enforcement found out she'd killed them. Their Monthly Recovery Report for November, 1994, listed Alexander and Michael Smith as "recovered" by them on November 3, 1994, and classified as LIMs.
Yet Walsh and his National Center never address runaway youths, child abuse, date rape and homicide, child safety and accidents, and many other dangers to children, like guns and drugs. Instead they exaggerate stranger abductions, which are rare, but, again, they never look for children.
Their "Monthly Recovery Reports," which aren't made public, show that nearly 70 percent of their "recoveries" are of runaway children. Yet the National Center admits it doesn't handle runways. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center, conceded, "We couldn't possibly handle the huge number of (runaway) cases and don't try."
"All calls on runaways are transferred directly to the National Runaway Switchboard," said John Rabun, vice president of the National Center.
Yet runaways are sometimes portrayed as abductions, although never investigated by the National Center.
Anette Marie Beaman was a 15-year-old girl who allegedly was abducted by a stranger in July, 1996. The National Center claimed it "recovered" her in February, 1997, and still listed her as an NFA.
But police in her hometown of Winona, Missouri, said the girl had runaway voluntarily and had returned voluntarily. She was not abducted.
Officials at the National Center claimed 13-year-old Jessica Woehl as an NFA and as a "recovery" on April 17, 1997. The Nashua, New Hampshire, girl disappeared on March 25, 1997; however, she had run off with a 22-year-old man she'd met in person during February, 1997. They'd made contact several months earlier through the Internet; he'd given her presents and they had seen each other a couple of times before running away together.
"She went with him willingly," said Adam Woehl, her 16-year-old brother.
Boyfriends sometimes kill girlfriends, but their victims sometimes are classified as Non-family Abductions.
Angel Ormston, 17, of Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio, disappeared the night of July 31, 1992. Of course, the National Center listed her as an NFA, only three weeks later, on August 21, 1992.
Local authorities found her body on December 15, 1992, and two weeks later arrested her boyfriend, Mark Sotka, 19, of Chardon, Ohio. Sotka had been a classmate and lover of Ormston's in high school. During February, 1993, he admitted to killing her. He said they'd gone out that night in July and had driven to his home, where they'd often made love. But that night they'd argued. She'd told him she was pregnant, but couldn't have an abortion because she was underage and her mother wouldn't have allowed it.
"After hearing this, I went crazy," Sotka said, "and hit her in the face with my fist. She fell down and went unconscious. I figured I had to get rid of her somehow. I ran to my garage and found a knife. I stabbed her twice." Wrapping her body in a sheet, he bound her with rope and green duct tape and put her in the trunk of his car, he pointed out. Then he drove to an isolated area of Perry Township and left her in a ditch.
Judge Paul Mitrovich sentenced him to 20 years to life.
The National Center still listed Angel Ormston as an NFA.
Heather Kleiber, 13, of Charlevoix, Michigan, also lost her life because of a trusted family acquaintance, but the National Center still claimed a stranger abducted and killed her. Last seen on August 16, 1990, at a party, she accepted a ride home from someone she knew, but she didn't return home that night. Walsh featured her as a stranger abduction on "America's Most Wanted" in December, 1990. About 50 million postcards were sent out, claiming abduction.
Police found her body on May 4, 1991, in a nearby creek.
In November, 1991, the young man she trusted confessed to killing her and went to jail for life. National Center reports still claimed her as an NFA, listing her as missing on August 24, 1990, and "recovered" on May 13, 1991.
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