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Age Progression Photos

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I would like to address why I never post age progression photos on my blog or social media posts about missing people. I do not believe that any of the ones found alive looked anything like theirs. Here are some examples from individuals I blogged about below.  Jaycee Dugard from left to right: age 11 when she was taken, age 29 when she was found, and her age progression photo created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.   Carlina White from left to right: as a newborn when she was taken, her age progression photo, and her picture when she was found in her 20’s. To be fair, it can’t be easy to make an age progression photo for someone taken as a newborn. They’d have to guess which features she got from her mother and which she got from her father, and kids surprise us with that stuff! Gina DeJesus when she went missing, her age progression photo, and when she was found at age 23.  Amanda Berry when she went missing at age 16, her age progression phot...
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Natasha Ryan

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 Natasha Ryan went missing at age 14 in 1998. She had run away only a month before, but was found after two days. When she didn’t turn up this second time around, it was assumed that she was dead.  There was an active serial killer in the area at the time. This killer would be accused of killing Natasha, and it was made clear that her body was the only one of his victims that was never found. The serial killer also confessed to murdering her. A lot of times, criminals will falsely confess to crimes they didn’t commit because they like the attention it gives them.  But Natasha wasn’t dead. It was now 2003, and she had spent the last five years hiding in her boyfriend’s home.  She alerted an 800 number for teens in crisis that a man was about to be accused of killing her, and that she was still alive.  Natasha’s story often shines light on how badly we treat runaways. I have a few opinions about runaways: One is that their status as a missing person should not mat...
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Carlina White

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  Carlina White was abducted from the hospital after being admitted with a high fever when she was 19 days old. She was abducted by a woman who had several miscarriages and was unable to have children of her own. Carlina grew suspicious of her abductor when she became pregnant with her first child and needed a copy of her birth certificate to obtain prenatal care. When she took the birth certificate she was given in, she was told it was forged. Carlina then searched several websites for information on missing infants that would be around her age and found the missing poster for herself. She believed the picture looked exactly like her own newborn and approached the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children herself. DNA then confirmed that she was in fact Carlina White. 
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Zephany Nurse

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  This story comes from Capetown, South Africa. Zephany Nurse was abducted from her mother’s hospital room when she was two days old in the spring of 1997. Her birth mom had fallen asleep because she was asleep, and the baby was gone when she woke up. The hospital was searched, and a pillow normally used to fake a pregnancy was found in a tunnel leading to and from the maternity ward.  17 years later, the second born daughter of Zephany’s natural parents was a freshman in high school, when she met a senior named Nichè that she felt an instant bond with. The two of them often said that they felt like sisters, and many people commented on how much they looked alike, too. When her parents found out about this, they immediately suspected it was Zephany and asked their younger daughter to take a selfie with her.  Finally, caseworkers confronted Nichè at school, but it didn’t seem possible that the couple whom she considered her parents would ever lie to her about anything. Ho...
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Kamiyah Mobley

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 Kamiyah Mobley was abducted from the hospital only 8 hours after she was born. Her abductor was someone that had been faking a pregnancy and dressed as a nurse to enter the hospital to befriend Kamiyah’s birth mother. She made the birth mom believe that she needed to take Kamiyah for testing and took her out of the hospital in a duffel bag.  Kamiyah’s abductor raised her as her own daughter. It was only when she wanted to get her first job and didn’t have proper identification that she found out she was kidnapped at birth. She kept it a secret for a few months, and finally confided in a cousin of hers that she was Kamiyah Mobley. Her abductor Gloria Williams was then arrested and is still in prison to this day.  Here’s a clip  about Kamiyah being found.  The most interesting thing to me about her case is that Kamiyah still considered her abductor her mom. This caused waves between her and her birth mother. However, she and her birth father got along well, becau...
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Shawn Hornbeck

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  Shawn Hornbeck went missing in 2002 at the age of 11. He was riding his bike to a friend’s house when he was abducted by Michael Devlin and was held captive in Michael’s apartment for the next four and a half years. The best documentary I can find on Shawn is  here .  The most noteworthy aspect of Shawn’s case is his rescue. In January of 2007, his captor abducted another boy named Ben Ownby. There was one witness to Ben’s abduction, a teenage boy who was getting off the school bus with Ben. This teenager had a very intense obsession with trucks and gave the police such a detailed description of the truck that it nearly made him look suspicious. Law enforcement still decided to publish the detailed description, which is what ultimately led to the discovery of both Ben and Shawn alive in Devlin’s apartment.  Another noteworthy part of Shawn’s rescue was the  victim blaming by Bill O’Reilly . Shawn made it very clear in interviews later on how his captor had com...
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The Cleveland Abductions

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  The discovery of three missing women in the home of Ariel Castro really shook up the world. When others were found alive in the past, many people may have just thought it was a fluke that they were alive. I knew I felt that way about Jaycee Dugard in 2009. But four years later in 2013, Amanda Berry got the chance to break free of her captor’s home and call 911 from the home across the street.  The best documentary on these three is  here .  Michelle Knight was the first to be abducted in 2002. Since she was a legal adult with a history of running away, police didn’t do much to search for her.  A year later in 2003, Ariel also kidnapped Amanda Berry. Amanda was about to turn 17 the next day. Her abduction caused a media frenzy. She was walking home from her job at Burger King and never made it home.  Another year later in 2004, he kidnapped 14 year old Gina DeJesus on her way home from school. The community now lost two girls from the same street only a ye...
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