Searching for a missing person

Facial recognition programs are great. Let's say you get you composite drawing of what your Missing kid would look like now, put it into a database, not AFIS but the one for missing people and whatnot, then the facial regognition program picks her up going to a ball game. You said your person was broke, maybe a google search or a zadasearch.com (those people are scary!)

Perhaps your protag could look up old school records or visit the girl's high school. The girl's teachers and classmates might remember something, though twenty years is a long time. Some of the teachers might not be alive anymore. Was the girl part of any clubs? Beginning college and entering a sorority, perhaps? Did the girl have a job?

Visiting her old home(s) might help, too. The neighbors might know something. Did the girl leave voluntarily, or was she kidnapped? If she intentionally made herself scarce she might have left clues (an old diary, perhaps).

Continuing with the school angle, perhaps this year is what would have been the girl's twenty year high school reunion. Maybe your protag could crash the party and learn something.

The Protag. could try a show like Unsolved Mysteries.

Missing People

The Red Cross and the Salvation Army do a good job finding missing people. The Red Cross can often find people on the other side of the world.
Large church groups often help out too.
In certain cases Insurances companies can help.

Missing 1990s technology

Caren-
Just a thought, but maybe your protag could find out the girl's social security number and run a credit check? (In the 70s, most schools kept track of students through their ss#).

Many people have access to credit check services through their work, like apartment managers, retail stores, etc. (Maybe protag could impose on a friend?) The credit check should return: place of employment (if any), bank and average balances (if any) and amount of taxable income on last tax return, as well as last known address.

The absence of any information on a credit check would indicate either the individual was dead, institutionalized (eg jail, mental hospital) or concealing their identity by using another social security number.

Joni

SS# angle is good but your thread is titled "Missing Persons" which gave me the impression that it is a case of disapearance, kidnapping, runaway etc. where ss# would not be used. Intentional disapearance is also hard to track.

If the missing person is actually just an old aquaintance then all the above work fine.

If it is more devious, let me know and I'll give you a couple hints via pm.

Joni Holderman said:

Caren-
Just a thought, but maybe your protag could find out the girl's social security number and run a credit check? (In the 70s, most schools kept track of students through their ss#).

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Would schools have given out this information on former students? Identity theft wasn't the issue in the 1990s that it is today, but I still have trouble seeing a school giving out personal identification--especially on a missing student who went missing--to anyone but police.

Aconite said:

Would schools have given out this information on former students?

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Aconite- Be sneaky!!

They probably wouldn't tell you the ss# if you called and asked, but I imagine they would be cooperative about sharing other information and/or the file with a concerned friend or relative specifically because the person is missing. All it would take is 30 seconds alone with the file to see the ss#-- it's written all over it. You could probably see it across the room. Certainly across the desk!

I needed some info from my high school in 2000, and they STILL keep old student files under the ss#.

IMHO, in fiction it's not so much "what is the official policy" as "what could plausibly occur." If you need for it to happen, you can usually create the right circumstances.

Joni

Joni Holderman said:

They probably wouldn't tell you the ss# if you called and asked, but I imagine they would be cooperative about sharing other information and/or the file with a concerned friend or relative specifically because the person is missing.

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I can certainly see them cooperating with family, but family members could be expected to have the SSN already. I really can't see them cooperating with a "concerned friend," because anyone could pose as such, and schools tend to have rules about protecting students' privacy (to a pitiful extent, usually, but none of the secretaries I knew would ever have let a non-relative, non-police person near a student's records, particularly in a sensationalist case that the media could be interested in). I especially can't see them cooperating with a "friend" in a case where the child went missing--who knows if you'd be cooperating with a kidnapper or murderer?--and most especially not years after the event. I agree, anything you can make plausible is fair game in fiction. I just don't see that, as presented, as plausible.