When I started reporting regularly on missing persons in 2021, I felt it was a calling.
Many of the stories resonated with underserved communities of color. Thousands of adolescents, teens, and young adults are being trafficked by gangs.
We need to focus on the missing.
Missing Since 2010
Patrick Alford was just 7, when he disappeared from Spring Creek Towers in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, New York on January 22, 2010. His foster mother said when she turned her head to put out the trash, he was gone. Canine dogs traced Patrick's scent to a bus stop near the towers. Patrick's biological mother passed a lie detector test.
NamUs Case Information - NamUs #MP5427
Missing Since 2005
Eddie Tillman was an adolescent when he confided in his mother that "he liked boys."
He disappeared on October 10,. 2005, on the way to school in lower Manhattan. His mother and sisters still live in Brooklyn. They said there was a sighting of Eddie, dressed as a female, several years after he went missing.
NamUs Case Information - NamUs #MP7058
Missing Since 2006
Shawntell Monique Waites is one of more than a dozen women reported missing in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area since 2001, according to the Black & Missing Foundation.
NamUs Case Information - NamUs #MP621