Age Progression: an Aid in Locating Stolen American Babies

Experts believe that many infants abducted long ago can still be located.

Clockwise from top left: James Bordenkircher, Elizabeth Ann Gill, Melissa Highsmith and Joseph Hurtado.

(SALEM, Ore.) - You could call it "future forecasting". Photo progression technology has advanced the science of locating missing children in ways that investigators of yesterday only dreamed of.

The public, along with police and online missing persons agencies like charleyproject.org, http://www.doenetwork.org/, and media organizations like Salem-News.com have an open chance to raise the odds for locating missing children. It begins by taking the time to study images of the missing, and note which of the locations are close to you.

Sometimes people discover that they live very close to a crime scene, and sometimes the families of the victims and the people responsible for their disappearance, are in the same place.

Sadly, all too many volunteers who become engaged in this extremely important work are people who lost a child, or have a missing family member. Our agencies banding together with the eyes and ears of the public, incrementally raises the possibility that some of these children, many of whom are now adults, could be located.

The news recently featured the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, freed from captivity after 18 years of being held in poor conditions as she was sexually abused and ultimately gave birth to two girls, who were also released.

The very car that her stepfather saw her being kidnapped in, was eventually located 150 miles from the girl's home. (see: NY Daily News: Jaycee Lee Dugard's struggle to re-enter society after 18 years in captivity)

There is the story of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped during the summer of 2002 from her home in Utah, and held for nearly a year, again not a long distance from the scene of the kidnapping. (see: Wikipedia: Elizabeth Smart kidnapping)

These stories testify to the possibilities that exist.

A Salem-News.com contributor and Missing Person Advocate, Andrea Stroh, assembled a list of abducted babies from across America. The list is not complete, but gives a reader an idea of the immensity of the problem. The list below is approximately 60 abducted infants aged birth to two years old, who have been missing over the last 50 years or so.

Experts believe it is possible that many of these infants may still be "recoverable", as statistically, children this age are usually abducted more often by people with psychological problems, who want to raise a child, as opposed to sexual predators who may harm them.

There is also the very strong possibility in these cases, that the children themselves, taken at an extremely young age, may not be aware of their own story, that is until they see a photo on a site like this.

In the list below, you will find hot links that take you to a page on that individual child. Almost all have pictures, and most are age progressed. The pages include birthmarks and identifying features, Stroh said.

"They might notice they have the same scars as one of the missing, and this along with other things might arouse their suspicion. A girlfriend might say 'my husband has a birthmark like that' or my friend or my friend's daughter has a heart shaped birthmark on her arm. 'That looks like so and so's baby picture' etc.'"

She added, "Even if they don't see it today, even with all the thousands of hits on the Jaycee Lee Dugard case, if it's on the Internet it's out there."

Cases:

• Steven Craig Damman Oct. 31 1955 (small scar under chin/birthmark on back of left calf/ healed fracture to left arm/was undergoing treatment for a growth on his kidney at the time he vanished)
• James Bordenkircher June 12 1965
• Elizabeth Gill June 13 1965 (chicken pox scar on one of her arms)
• David Miera Jan. 10 1970 (birthmark in center of upper back/wide set eyes/ wide feet/large for his age at time of disappearance)
• Melissa Highsmith Aug. 23 1971 (three inch red colored birthmark on back below her neck) *suspect composite*
• Joseph Hurtado Sept. 9 1974 (birthmark near right kidney/club feet) may be pigeon toed)
• Michael Lloyd Johnson November (unknown date)1974
• Tiffani Claudette Wise March 30 1977 (reddish-blond hair, naturally curly/surgical scar from behind hairline to back of head)
• Fannie Fawn Stuart Dec. 10 1977 (red hair/missing with her sister)
• Raymond Green Nov. 6 1978 (abductor black female,had a mole on her cheek/ fled in brown vehicle)
• Royce Henson (missing with mom) March 23 1979 (biracial, may have some black features)
• Larry Krebbs March 30 1980
• Megan Ginevicz April 30 1980
• Curtis Fair Nov. 15 1980 (half-inch scar under chin/three inch scar on back)
• David Ezell Blockett Dec. 11 1980 (David has a mole on right ear/birthmarks under his left arm/back/buttocks)*suspect composite*
• Russell John Mort May 5 1982 (small mole on left side of chin/small cleft in chin) *suspect composite*
• Shannon Patrick Ketron June 17 1982
• Wallace Guidroz Jan. 10 1983 (biracial African-American and Asian) *suspect composite*
• Jason Keith Cannon March 16 1983 (a scar over one of his eyes, two moles on his neck and possibly more on his back)
• Desiree Carroll March 25 1983 (has a dog bite scar under left eye/suffered from allergies at time of disappearance)
• Vinyette Teague June 25 1983
• Amber Nicole Crum Dec. 26 1983
• Tanisha Lorraine Watkins Jan. 5 1984
• Sean Evans May 17 1984 (one inch birthmark between shoulder blades/ birthmark and scar on forehead)
• Donel Jacoby Minor Dec. 20 1984 *suspect composite*
• Robert Bowling Aug. 11 1985
• Marlene Santana Oct. 21 1985 (foot deformity, feet will appear C shaped if viewed from bottom) *suspect composite*
• Christopher Abeyta July 15 1986
• Bonita Karen Sanders Sept. 14 1986 (abdominal hernia scar, scar on joint of left wrist,one of her hands is lightly deformed and turns inward) she was left handed as a baby and may still be today.
• Jamie Thornton Oct. 4 1986 (birthmark on right thigh)
• Corey Edkin Oct. 12 1986 (blond hair that is very light in color)
• Cherie Nicole Barnes Dec. 1 1986
• Kimberly Boyd April 3 1987
• Andrew Brown July 24 1987
• Carlina White Aug. 4 1987 (has birthmark over left eye) *suspect has some hair under her chin*
• Melissa Diane McGuinn March 6 1988 (pigmentation mark on right tricep)
• Daniel Stephen Spangle March 2 1989 (curly hair/scar on top of left eyelid)
• Aaron Anderson April 7 1989 (small white colored birthmark on lower right side of abdomen)
• Christopher Dansby May 18 1989 (birthmark shaped like figure 8 on his back, burn scar on thigh) Shane Walker Aug.10 1989 (small scar under his chin)
• Jasmine Kirlissa Collins Aug. 8 1991 (has asthma)
• LaMoine Allen missing with Kreneice Jones May 10 1992(LaMoine has a scar on left knee / Kreneice has a scar infront of right ear)
• Tavish Sutton March 9 1993 Jeremy Dages (missing with mom) April 28 1993
• Jamaree Clarence Coleman July 24 1993 (has a split down right earlobe/ may have mole behind left ear)
• Ashley Conroy (missing with mom) Dec. 14 1993
• Annalycia Cruz July 9 1994 (has a quarter sized red colored birthmark on the nape of her neck)
• Kelsi Jordan Krum Aug. 11 1994
• Ruben David Felix Feb. 23 1997 (scar on right wrist)
• Shannon Verhage June 3 1997 (strawberry colored birthmark on back of neck at hairline)
• Sabrina Aisenberg Nov. 24 1997 (several marks in the shape of the letter Y below right shoulder)
• Kamiyah Mobley July 10 1998 (umbilical hernia (navel) which would get larger when she laughed/cried momgolian spots on buttocks, whick usually disappear in a few weeks after birth) *suspect composite*
• Allyson Kathleen Dalton July 27 1998
• Teekah Lewis Jan. 23 1999 (Large sized birthmark on left buttock, natural red highlight in hair, patches of light discolration on face,facial dimples, eczema, asthma)*had some grey in hair* (according to her mom's website)
• Sausha Henson and Shaina Kirkpatrick April 4 2001 (Sausha has a red mark on top of head/Shaina has a triangle shaped birthmark on the back of her head)
• Jacqueline Vasquez May 6 2001 (heart-shaped birthmark on upper right arm)
• Bryan Dos Santos Gomes Dec. 1 2006
• Tangena Hussain Oct. 2 2008 (East-Indian decent/ has burn scar on chin and upper lip)

Here is a link to a study done in 2006 on statistics for abducted infants and abductors done over a 20 year period. It covers infants 6 months and under: nursingcenter.com/library/JournalArticle.asp?Article_ID=812511

Andrea and I, along with other members of our staff, will begin spending more time in this important area and our next feature will discuss missing infants whose cases involve suspect and vehicle sketches and descriptions. We also will be speaking with families of the missing and delivering fresh updates on these extremely important stories.

My email address is below, you can also email Andrea Stroh in Canada at, astroh@rogers.com

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com