According to the Arkansas State Police, there are currently more than 400 unsolved missing persons cases in the state involving individuals ranging in age from 1 year to 91 years old.
In 2016, in an effort to keep such cases from falling out of the public eye, the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC) partnered with the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office to create NeverForgotten.ar.gov, a public, searchable database for all missing persons in Arkansas.
On Friday, ACIC announced “a significant upgrade” to the webpage to enable real-time updates to be entered when a missing person is reported to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) by a local law enforcement agency. The system, according to a state police news release, will automatically capture the entry and post it online, including any live updates or changes to that entry, such as revised information. The release said the upgrade will also enable immediate removal from the site if a person is found and taken off the NCIC list.
ACIC Deputy Director Rick Stallings, who led the research and implementation of the improvements and worked closely with the site’s vendor, Mainstream Technologies in Little Rock, said the idea behind the upgrade was to provide real-time ability for law enforcement to enter new information or updates to existing information for immediate dissemination.
“Before this enhancement,” Stallings said, “it was being updated once a week, so on Monday morning it was uploaded with information from the week before and by that point, anything after 10 o’clock was stale information because it’s waiting until the next Monday to upload. So that’s a significant improvement, getting the information in real time.”
Another feature of the system upgrade, he said, in addition to adding the ability to enter or update missing person information almost instantly with no lag time, is that outdated information can quickly be removed.
To have a new entry placed on the website or to update an older entry, Stallings said people should contact their local law enforcement agency, which is responsible for submitting updated information and photographs to NCIC. Local agencies then provide updated information to ACIC for inclusion on the website.
“By state law,” Stallings said, “they have to enter the information to NCIC immediately.”
In the case of new reports, he said, a common misconception driven by television is that there is a wait time of 24 hours before a missing person can be reported.
“In Arkansas,” Stallings said, “that’s not true … In fact, the Adam Walsh Act requires a missing person to be entered within two hours.”
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law in 2006. Named for Adam Walsh, an American boy who was abducted from a Florida shopping mall in 1981 and later found murdered, the act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and it established a comprehensive national sex offender registration system called the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
As information is entered, “that is put into the system in real time,” which Stallings said allows descriptions and other information to be accessible as soon as it is reported.
“If they come two days later and the family says, ‘well, they have a scar on their abdomen or a tattoo on their right shoulder,’ they enter that into the system and it’s up there immediately,” he said.
Another feature of the system is an alert that goes out to Arkansas State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service when a missing person is entered, which Stallings said gives law enforcement the ability to respond more quickly, particularly in cases involving juveniles who may be at risk of being trafficked. By eliminating the lag time, he said, both the general public and law enforcement have access to the most current information available.
As of Friday afternoon, just a few hours after going live, Stallings said he had already received 21 emails from people regarding various people listed on the website.
“There are quite a lot of missing person cases here in Arkansas,” he said. “A lot of people wouldn’t believe how many are reported.”
As of Friday afternoon, the website had 425 entries spanning six decades, featuring a haunting montage of photographs of people who one day, without explanation, seemingly vanished into thin air.
The oldest entry on the site is that of Margie Ada Snead, who was reported missing from Hot Springs on New Year’s Day 1974. Snead, who was 19 when she was last heard from, would be 70 today, according to the website.
The most recent entry is that of 17-year-old Reid Osment who, according to the website, was reportedly last seen in Russellville on Thursday, was placed on the site that same day.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, since its inception in 2007, 770 cases of human trafficking have been identified in Arkansas, involving 1,979 victims of both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
“Any missing person, regardless of age, is important,” Arkansas State Police Maj. Stacie Rhoads said in the release. “We will continue to work together to find innovative ways to bring them home.”
In addition to ACIC, the release said, Arkansas’ missing persons efforts are supported by the Attorney General’s Office, Arkansas State Crime Lab, Arkansas State Police, Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police, Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Little Rock Division, the Morgan Nick Foundation and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
“Locating missing children and adults is a priority shared by local, state and national partners,” said Arkansas Public Safety Secretary Col. Mike Hagar. “In Arkansas, we work together to support families searching for answers.”
Installed at a cost of $13,000, Stallings said the upgrade was paid for out of ACIC general revenue and is a one-time expenditure with no ongoing licensing or maintenance fees. He said the effort to develop the upgraded capabilities had been ongoing for about a year after he was approached by Arkansas State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service, both of which expressed interest in such an upgrade to help combat human trafficking.
Although the capability has been available in other states, Stallings said, because of differences in what information Arkansas authorities publish, Mainstream Technologies worked with ACIC to tailor the system upgrade to the state’s specific needs under a tight deadline.
“We gave them the go-ahead in May,” Stallings said. “We said it had to be done by July 1 and they were able to do it.”