Police procedures UK - missing children

Has the child been previously reported to the police as missing?

What do you need to happen?

The police in Britain positively encourange anonymous tipoffs, though the use of the CrimeStoppers freephone number, the publicity for which always emphasises that you don't have to leave your name.

They wouldn't rush round and arrest someone on the strength of one tipoff of course. What they did at once would probably depend on how much specific information the caller gave them. They might investigate immediately, or put the name on a list to check out later.

Yep, the police would investigate. Every so often they go and dig up another part of the country looking for the missing. Unsolved cases are never closed.

Could be that the perpetrator is on the DNA database for another, unrelated offence. Even for minor offences you can get your DNA put on the database these days and then it's compared to evidence from unsolved crime scenes. It's a bit of a dubious area in civil liberties terms, but it's cleared up numerous old murder and rape cases and other serious crimes where the perpetrator probably long since thought they'd got away with it. Anyway... can of worms, that's for another discussion!

Of course in dramatic terms that makes it a bit easy for your protaganist and the breaking in is more exciting. (Though sounds rather similar to a bit in The Lovely Bones where the victim's sister breaks in to the murderer's house to look for evidence. Then again that's a common enough trope all around.)

Just hair itself isn't much use for DNA by the way. You need hair with follicles still attached. Steal the whole hairbrush - follicles and skin cells galore on that.

The police would obviously have to redo DNA tests once they arrested him. You might need a police or lawer type to confirm if they can even use her evidence as reasonable grounds for arresting him. Obviously a girl walking into a police station with something she says came from that guy hardly has the kind of proper chain of evidence it would need to be used in court!

Would they do DNA on someone arrested for the abduction of a child?

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God, yes! Like a shot.

That sounds like an interesting scenario. Could she and a friend try to set it up so she gets grabbed and the friend then brings the police, but of course something goes horribly wrong, he takes her somewhere other than they expected and the friends can't follow, or he grabs the friend too, or whatever.

I'm always thinking to myself when plotting "so they decide to do this...now how can that a) not work and b) horribly backfire?

Well it could be she lets him know she knows about the other girl, so he has to grab her to silence her. Or, well, why not go the other way around with the revelations. Get him arrested first by making him abduct her - then give the police the location of the body, so they can match up the DNA. So he won't be on his guard the way he would if the body is found first.

Of course that's a lot for your protag to risk on the word of a ghost. If the ghost tips her about the body and then, yep, there is indeed a body where she said, then she's convinced. But without that it's a lot to risk her life on. Maybe the ghost can give her some other kind of evidence, like maybe the location of a murder weapon which is somewhere other than with the body. Or the killer took a trophy, so the ghost says "in his house you'll find a slide from my hair" or whatever, and the protag find said item and knows it's for real - so there she is breaking into the house again.

So in order to get him arrested before revealing where the body is, she puts her plan into effect to get him to kidnap her. Maybe she takes the trophy and lets him know she's got it? Or just takes a picture of it in his house or something, with something identifing it as his house. Maybe she lures him pretending she wants money to keep silent, thinking he either comes along with the money (close to an admission of guilt itself!) or will try to silence her for good.

I love a bit of brainstorming. I always end up wanting to write that story myself. Hope it gets you thinking anyway.

Julie Reilly said:

I was thinking possibly of a trophy as well - another link from the body to the killer without having to rely on DNA evidence left on the body.

But if you were a clever killer, would you keep such an obvious piece of incriminating evidence?

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Depends on the mentality (rather than the cleverness) of the killer - some think they are so clever they will never get caught, so yes they would keep such a piece of evidence. Others do not think at all and would keep it just because they can. Killers who are caught are not clever, they are at some point, careless and /or arrogant. Or both. Some killers are in a world of their own where they are the supreme being and everyone else is subservient to them. They believe they will never get caught.

She then hands in the DNA sample to the police, who compare it with what they found under the victim's nails.

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I don't think that would work as it would only be her word where the DNA came from. She would have to tell the police how she got it and breaking and entering is a crime.

But then, maybe she doesn't have to break and enter. If she gets lifted by the killer, she can get his DNA. And when she's rescued, that DNA is checked and up pops the old case.

Trophies are kept in order to facilitate reliving the experience. That's much the same reason why many criminals return to the scene of the crime. Cleverness or otherwise doesn't really have anything to do with it.

Buffy I thought that the criminal returning to the scene of the crime was an urban myth. Some criminals surely go as far away from the scene as possible.

No, it's quite often true. Ian Huntley, for instance, actually got involved in the search/investigation for the two girls he killed.