Missing persons investigations are always a great source of distress. The disappearance of a loved one is a nightmare that none of us want to face. However, there is a lot to be said for being prepared for the worst as we hope for the best. Knowing what to do when someone we care about becomes a missing person can make all the difference in bringing them home safe and well.
When a partner, friend, or family member vanishes unexpectedly, we can find ourselves in panic mode, and in missing persons investigations, time is often of the essence. While there are many reasons why a person may disappear—not all giving reason for alarm—precaution is always the prudent course, because time may be of the essence. To help you navigate this moment in the name of your loved ones best interests, the missing persons investigations team here at Lauth Missing Persons recommends taking the following steps:
The First Places to Check
When worried about the whereabouts of a loved one, it can be easy to miss an obvious explanation. Missing persons specialists recommend taking a deep breath and taking an analytical approach to checking all the potential places that the person may be, or that might indicate their whereabouts.
Check the person’s home. If you can’t do that in person, contact someone close by to assist, or reach out to the local authorities for help with a wellbeing check.
Check their place of work and frequent hangouts, such as health centers, sports clubs, and entertainment venues.
Contact or visit colleagues, friends, and family members to see if anyone knows where the missing person might be, or where they were last seen.
Check social media for any indicators of your loved ones plans or recent communications.
Contact nearby hospitals in case your loved one has been admitted.
As you search for a missing person, keep your phone with you in case anyone—including your loved one—tries to get in touch, or shares information. Keep notes on anything you discover. Be careful not to delete or alter any social media or phone messages, or clean up where your loved one has been in case missing person investigators later need to look for evidence.
When to Contact the Authorities
It is never too soon to contact the authorities when concerned about a missing person. Having checked in all of the logical places—or sooner if the missing person is vulnerable or your instinct tells you that there is cause for concern—you can reach out to your local law enforcement agency to file a missing persons report.
Keep in mind that procedure in cases of missing persons varies from state to state. In some areas police may not be able to act for 24 or 48 hours unless there is reason to suspect a crime, or the missing person in question falls into certain vulnerability categories, such as being under 18, or over 65 years of age; suffering from physical illness; suffering from mental illness; experiencing depression, or suicidal thoughts.
What Else You Can Do
It can feel frustrating when the authorities are not acting with the urgency that you feel they should, however there are lots of other steps that you can take in the interest of finding your loved one:
Enlist the help of friends and family to create a search party, launch a social media campaign, and put up flyers in your neighborhood.
Alert the media, providing photographs and a description of your loved one so that they can help you raise awareness across a much larger audience.
Encourage the local authorities by offering your assistance; providing data, photographs, and DNA samples of family members; requesting a phone trace; and requesting canine support if mounting a private search.
Hire a private investigator to help you find your loved one. Missing person specialists can commit more time to searching for your loved one than local authorities agents may be able to, are able to access wider resources than members of the public, and can harness expert knowledge and experience.
If your loved one has gone missing, the missing persons investigations team at Lauth Missing Persons is ready to take action and find their trail. Learn more about what we do or contact us today for immediate action.
Cases of missing children are always more fraught than those of missing adults, but missing child cases can be even further compounded when missing children have neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. This requires a specialized approach in the missing person investigation that can present particular challenges, like the ones investigators have faced in searching for Ryan Larsen, 12. It’s been over 125 days since Ryan disappeared from his school last May, and investigators are still stymied on what exactly happened in the moments before his disappearance.
Ryan Larsen walked away from La Vista West Elementary school in La Vista, Nebraska on May 17, 2021. Following the report of his disappearance, police launched a comprehensive search of land, air, and water in the nearby areas only to come up with nothing. Unfortunately, investigators were staring down a long tunnel with no answers. In a press conference nearly a month ago, La Vista Police Chief Bob Lausten said “After the initial period of searching by land, by air, and the water, things went a little bit stagnant.”
Just like any missing person case, the Ryan Larsen case has been subject to a barrage of self-proclaimed psychics who claim they know what happened to Ryan, but none of the tips investigators have received have panned out. When Ryan’s umbrella was found by a dumpster near his family’s home, landfill assessment experts from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in pursuit of the theory that Ryan might have accidentally fallen in the dumpster and had ended up in the landfill. Lausten also told the media, “They did an analysis and the possibility of that would be very minute, the lowest probability on the scale of that happening. So there’s no evidence we had that it actually happened, but we wanted to rule out even those remote possibilities.”
In hopes of better preparing the La Vista Police Department to better handle cases such as Ryan’s, they have launched a new community program called “Take Me Home.” The program will allow members of the community to help law enforcement with information on their children with special needs, or vulnerable adults. “Getting information about special needs kids, people or vulnerable adults and have that in a database so if we do get a call, for example of an Alzheimer’s patient that walks away from their house, the information we will have already is what places they frequent if they have done this before, where were they found before,” explained Lausten. “So when we’re en route to the call, officers can get into areas quickly and we can get the search going.”
This kind of program has the ability to accelerate the processes behind missing person investigations and benefit future missing persons. Future emergencies can be more quickly resolved and increase the chances of a vulnerable missing person being found.
Ryan Larsen is described as white, 5’8” tall, with brown hair and hazel eyes. At the time of his disappearance, he was wearing a black jacket, blue jeans, an Old Navy Shirt, and was carrying a polka dot umbrella. If you see Ryan, authorities say not to call his name; instead, keep your distance and call 911. Anyone with information about his location should call Sarpy County Crimestoppers at 402-592-STOP (7867); or call 911. LVPD is also urging the public to use its See It, Say It, Send It app to submit tips, but to also “be mindful of unsubstantiated rumors circulating on this case.”
What began as a quest for adventure has now turned to tragedy in the case of one Long Island family who is missing a daughter. Gabby Petito, 22, disappeared while on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, leaving her family without answers. Her last known whereabouts were reportedly Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, travelling in a white 2012 Ford Transit van with Florida plates.
Gabby was last seen in person by her family was when she arrived home in June for her little brother’s high school graduation. It wasn’t long afterwards that Gabby set out on a journey with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie—Gabby’s second cross-country trip. Rather than seeing the country from her cramped car, Gabby made the decision to downsize her life so it could fit into the aforementioned Ford Transit. A prolific social media user, Gabby had documented her trip on YouTube. In July, Gabby Petito wrote on social media, “All the places it’s brought us so far have been amazing! As soon as we got to the Great Sand Dunes, I didn’t want to leave, there was so much to hike!”
Gabby’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, reported that her daughter had been keeping in regular contact with her during the trip. Their last FaceTime was either August 23 or 24, and Schmidt continued to receive text messages from her daughter—though she was not sure if the text messages came from her daughter or not. Between August 25 and 30, Schmidt received a number of text messages, but she wasn’t able to contact Gabby or Laudrie after August 30. On September 11, her family reported her missing.
Investigators are unsure of Gabby’s exact movements between August 24 and August 30, as they have not yet been able to contact Laundrie. After returning to his home in North Port, Florida, Laundrie hired an attorney, and has not yet begun cooperating with the authorities. “We talked with his parents, who did not make him available,” said Josh Taylor, the spokesman for the North Port Police. This has left investigators and Gabby’s loved ones to try and piece together her movements from her social media pages. Family friends have stated that the last post on Gabby’s Instagram was very uncharacteristic of her typical sort of post. Gabby’s friend, Nikki Passannante told the New York Post, “A two-word caption is very odd for Gabby. Usually, it’s a deep meaningful caption or otherwise she’ll detail her travels. This doesn’t really seem like she posted it, in my opinion.” Lanundrie has been described as missing by investigators who hope to speak with him and get any information on Gabby’s last known whereabouts.
This case has attracted fervent media attention, which was only further inflamed by the discovery of a body in Grand Tenton National Park. Investigators have said that the body’s description matches Petito, but will not have confirmation on this until an autopsy can be performed on Tuesday.
Petito was described by police and on a GoFundMe page as 5 feet 5, 110 pounds, blond with blue eyes.
“She has a triangle tattoo on left arm with flowers and a ‘Let it be’ tattoo written on her right arm. She has a Belly button piercing,” the post said.
Year after year, thousands of families are rocked by a sudden void in their lives when a loved one goes missing. Many are lucky when their loved one is found within a few hours or a few days, but many go weeks, months, often years without any answers. But for the families and loved ones of those aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared without a trace more than seven years ago in March of 2014, answers may never come.
It sounds like the plot of a television show—Manifest from NBC to be exact—in which the passengers and crew of a commercial airline completely vanish out of the sky. While the passengers on the plane in that show reappeared mysteriously after five years, the occupants of Flight 370 were never heard from again. More than 200 families are still waiting for an explanation as to how an entire commercial airliner could disappear without a trace in the real world.
227 passengers and 12 crew members onboard the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were the subject of what was called an “unprecedented” search by both sea and air when the plane vanished. Even more cryptic, there was no indication that the flight would not go as planned prior to take-off. The Boeing 777 bound for Beijing departed on time from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Following a change-over in air-traffic control systems, the plane appeared to divert from its planned route, flying back over the Malaysian Peninsula and headed towards the Indian Ocean. After passing over the Gulf of Thailand, Flight 370 completely vanished from radar screen. There was never any evidence of a crash, nor any communications of complications. Some believe that Flight 370 simply fell into the ocean and the debris fell into a trench, the same theory under which many suspect Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared. However, this is highly unlikely, unless the plane hit the ocean at a verticle angle, which would prevent the plane from smashing into identifiable debris.
The plausible theories that have been put forward as an explanation for the disappearance of Flight 370 span from technical to hijacking. There are a myriad of theories under which the flight might have been hijacked, including remotely with the use of cyberattacks. Other theories include a fire in the cockpit, vertical entry into the sea, and being shot down. On March 9, 2014, Chinese news outlets got a letter from the Chinese Martyrs Brigade—previously unheard-of group—claiming responsibility for the loss of Flight 370. The letter was eventually dismissed as fraudulent.
Whatever the cause of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappearing into thin air, one thing remains certain: Without answers to these troubling disappearances, there be families left twisting in the disappearance of their missing loved one.
Many true crime fans are familiar with the sad stories of famous missing persons such as Madeline McCan, or Natalee Holloway, both of whom went missing while travelling overseas. However, few true crime fans are as familiar with the story of the first missing person in recorded American History—a tale that has not only piqued the interests of the true crime world, but also that of supernaturalists across the United States.
When learning about the birth of American in school, many children are taught about the Pilgrims and their transatlantic journey on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. However, very rarely is there such a deep dive on one of the first ever attempts to settle in America. In 1585, acting on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I, Ralph Lane sought to establish the first colony in what is now the United States. Lane established a colony on Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County, North Carolina. After that colony went under, a second colony was sent to the same island in 1587—what has become known in history as the Lost Colony.
Virginia Dare is on record as being the first baby born in the United States to English settlers. Her birth was a momentous event for the colony as they attempted to put down strong roots in their new settlement. News of her birth rang out through the new world and in the old, and Virginia’s name became synonymous with early American colonialism. Many municipalities and sites across America bear Virginia Dare’s name in honor of the first missing child known to American history.
The Lost Colony
The Lost Colony was far from self-sustaining, as a lack of supplies and a hostile relationship with the indigenous peoples of the area shook the foundations of the colony. Virginia Dare’s grandfather, John White, sought to mitigate this instability by making a supply to England and return with supplies for the colony. However, while he was abroad, the Anglo-Spanish War prevented White from returning to the Roanoke colony when he had intended. When he was finally able to return in 1589, White discovered that the entire population of the Roanoke settlement—around 112 settlers—had completely vanished, including Virginia Dare. There were no burial grounds or remains found, and the only infamous, cryptic clue to the whereabouts of the missing colonists was a single word carved into the fence around the settlement: CROATOAN. This led White to believe that the colonists might have resettled on nearby Croatoan Island. However, before he was able to follow this lead to his missing settlers, the ship he was travelling on was forced to return to England.
Historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists around the world have speculated what might have happened to Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony. Some speculate that the colony succumbed to either disease or starvation due to their lack of resources. Some say that they ran afoul of indigenous peoples of the area. Others say that they were victims of Spanish hostiles during the course of the Anglo-Spanish War. However, in 2020, these researchers believe they might have finally found an answer.
The First Colony Foundation is a North Carolina nonprofit that is dedicated to researching and documenting the history of the Lost Colony. Among many documents they have reviewed include John White’s own writings in which he claimed the colonists had plans to move should the settlement become inhospitable. In 2012, researchers with the First Colony Foundation found the answer while studying a map at the British Museum that John White had painted himself. They discovered that White had made a few marks in invisible ink, likely to hide the information from the Spanish. He’d outlined two forts both about 50 miles away from the Roanoke settlement, which coincided with the distance the colonists had purportedly planned to travel should they ever have to leave the island.
What They Found in the Ground
Upon investigation of the sites that were marked on White’s map, the First Colony Foundation found shards of broken pottery that they believe to be remnants of pottery owned by the lost colonists. Researchers are confident that these are not the remnants of pots owned by Jamestown residents in the 17th century because of the lack of English pipes found in the dig sites—a very popular item amongst Jamestown settlers. This has lead researchers in the First Colony Foundation to speculate that the Lost Colony may have actually splintered into smaller groups to survive and assimilated with the indigenous population in the areas proposed on White’s map.
However, some scholars remain skeptical that the pottery remains are an indicator of the Lost Colony’s presence on these secret, marked locations. Charles Ewen, an archeologist at East Carolina University told National Geographic, “They are looking to prove rather than seeking to disprove their theory, which is the scientific way.”
While the initial story presented to the police following disappearance of Mary Badaracco some 37 years ago seemed somewhat plausible, it quickly disintegrated under scrutiny. Mary’s car keys and wedding ring were left on the kitchen counter, while all of her belongings and personal effects had vanished, including every framed photograph of her in the house.
Mary’s two adult children, Sherrie and Beth, would later tell missing person investigators that Dominic Badaracco, Mary’s second husband, had discouraged them from reporting her missing. Dominic himself would paint a picture of a man left by his wife—claiming to have given Mary $100,000 as an informal separation settlement payment before she left.
But The Details Just Didn’t Add Up
38 year old Mary Badaracco, a brunette Caucasian female with brown eyes, had last spoken to her daughters on August 19. She worked sporadically as a house cleaner and bartender in Sherman, Connecticut, and while she had a stormy relationship with her husband Dominic, Mary was close to her two daughters—one of whom had just given birth to Mary’s first grandchild.
Missing person investigators would later find that the couple, who married in 1970, had a long history of domestic violence which had seen Mary repeatedly reported as the victim. They would also discover that Dominic had been having an extramarital affair. Knowing that something was wrong, Sherrie and Beth decided to report their mother missing on August 31.
When police arrived, they discovered Mary’s 1982 Chevrolet Cavalier was parked at the end of the house’s driveway, with the driver’s side of the windshield smashed inwards. Dominic claimed to have last seen his wife on August 20, and admitted that he had smashed the car. Finding no evidence of foul play, police decided not to seize the vehicle, which also later disappeared. As suspicion mounted and the authorities tried to retrace their steps through the evidence, no trace was again found of the car, or of the $100,000 that Dominic claimed to have given his wife.
A Missing Adult and Shifting Circumstances
Loved ones insisted that Mary Badaracco would never have left without sharing her plans, however no clues to her whereabouts emerged. It soon came to light that Dominic had filed for divorce two days before Mary was reported missing on grounds of abandonment. Divorce proceedings followed nine months after Mary vanished. A woman named Joan had moved into the family home only weeks after Mary had gone missing, later becoming Dominic’s third wife.
A search was conducted of the home on Wakeman Hill Road, its outbuildings, and the surrounding woodland, sadly to no avail. The case would go cold for a further six years before missing person investigators received a tip in 1990. The informant claimed that Mary was murdered after a contract was issued on her life by members of The Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. The tip accused Dominic’s son Joseph, a member of the gang, of killing Mary with an accomplice named Steve Kendall. It claimed that Mary had been killed because she intended to go to police with incriminating information about her husband.
Joseph, who was in prison at the time for an unrelated crime, refused to cooperate, while Kendall reportedly failed a lie detector test. However, authorities were unable to confirm the tip and the pair were never charged. During this stage in the missing person investigations, Mary’s disappearance was finally classified as a homicide. The following year, in 1991, she was declared legally dead.
A New Suspect and A Bribery Attempt
In 2007, the spotlight of suspicion turned to a new individual. Ernest Dachenhausen, age 64, was a known associate of Dominic Badaracco. Suspecting his involvement in Mary’s disappearance, Police excavated the yard of Dachenhausen’s former home located in Newton, Connecticut. No evidence was found, however in April of 2008 Dachenhausen was arrested for attempting to interfere with the missing person investigations—a charge for which he would be found not guilty the following year.
By June of 2013, even though no hard evidence had been uncovered that pointed in his direction, Dominic must have felt that he was under threat. He was arrested for attempting to bribe a State Superior Judge with $100,000, in the hope that he would sway the grand jury probe into Mary’s case. Found guilty, Dominic was sentenced to seven years in prison, although he was granted early release only three years later.
A mother and grandmother known affectionately as Mary Poo, Mary Badaracco would have been 75 years old today. She was a chain smoker at the time of her disappearance, with distinguishing scars on her abdomen and right thumb from an appendectomy and stitches respectively. If Dominic Bandaracco, his son Joseph, or any of the other characters tied to the case know what happened to Mary, it remains uncertain that they will ever share their story. For Mary’s loved ones left behind, her disappearance sadly remains a mystery.
Taking Swift Action When Someone Goes Missing
Whenever someone disappears under suspicious circumstances, time should always be considered of the essence. Experienced and professional investigators can provide vital missing person assistance, swiftly enacting an independent investigation and following every lead no matter how small. Knowing that families in such a desperate situation can often hesitate over costs, dedicated investigators from Lauth Investigations also provide assistance in setting up Go Fund Me donation campaigns. Strategic fundraising of this nature can empower loved ones to pursue a missing adult or child unimpeded. We can also advise on organizations able to offer further missing person assistance, such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and Interpol’s I Familia. If you are searching for someone who has disappeared, contact us today to discover how we can help.
