Police in Michigan are looking for a 2-year-old girl who disappeared from a campsite on Monday, July 15.
Gabriella Vitale’s family lost track of her as they were packing up their campsite in Comins Township, Michigan, Monday morning, according to a news release from the Oscoda County Sheriff’s Office.
Please keep the members of the MSP, the Oscoda County Sheriff’s Office, DNR and all the volunteers in your thoughts as they continue to search fo 2 year old Gabrielle Vitale today! We are keeping her family and Gabrielle in our prayers as the search continues. @mspnorthernmi pic.twitter.com/I9v1bSFzmH
— MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) July 16, 2019
Her family is from the Monroe area and had been camping off Reber Road since last week, the release said.
The little girl’s pink jacket was found several yards from where she went missing, according to Michigan State Police.
MSP, the Oscoda County Sheriff’s Office, and the DNR are mounting a search for 2-year-old Gabrielle Vitale. She wandered from her camp site on Reber Rd west of M-33 this morning, and hasn’t been seen since. Anyone with info should contact police ASAP. pic.twitter.com/6mnDjuftO5
— @MSPNorthernMI (@mspnorthernmi) July 15, 2019
Police are asking people in the area to look out for the little girl and report any clothing items they may find to the dispatch center.
“If you find clothing, please don’t touch (to keep your scent off),” a statement from the Michigan State Police said.
They are also asking people to be careful as they drive through the area.
The search continues… pic.twitter.com/q5k6c0Llra
— @MSPNorthernMI (@mspnorthernmi) July 15, 2019
“Anyone driving around in the area should certainly be cautious,” Lt. Travis House told CNN affiliate WWTV. “Know that there’s a little girl out there that could cross the road at any time. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oscoda Central Dispatch Center at 989-826-3214 immediately, police said.
Missing Persons
Over 600,000 people go missing in the United States every year, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Many of the missing adults and children are found safe but others are never found or are found dead.
“It is estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year, with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year,” the center stated.
As of Jan. 22, there were 15,325 open missing person cases in addition to 12,449 open unidentified person cases.
The first 72 hours in a missing person case is the most critical, according to criminology experts. It’s imperative to obtain information through leads before people start to forget about potentially crucial details, Dr. Bryanna Fox, former FBI agent and criminology professor at the University of South Florida, told ABC News.
“The information that law enforcement gets tends to be a little more accurate, and they are able to act on the information and hopefully get that person who is missing quicker,” Fox said. Later, there are fewer “bread crumbs,” or leads, to follow.
Missing Persons Drop to Lowest in Decades
The reports of missing persons, and missing children in particular, decreased in 2018, reaching levels unseen since the beginning of available FBI data.
Nearly 613,000 Americans were reported missing in 2018, more than 424,000 of them under the age of 18. That’s a drop of almost 6 and 9 percent respectively from the year prior and the lowest shown in available records going as far back as 1990.
The numbers had dropped precipitously from the high of more than 980,000 reported missing in 1997 to less than 628,000 in 2013, but then started to pick up again—until the drop in 2018.
It’s not clear what exactly is behind the latest decrease.
Part of the long-term downward trend may have to do with technology, said Robert Lowery, vice president for the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Most of the missing children are runaways between 13 and 17, he said in a phone interview. “A lot of these children now have, frankly, cellphones or smartphones. They’re also using social media. … The point being that parents are able to find their children themselves much quicker than they had been, before they have to engage law enforcement.”
Law enforcement techniques to locate missing children have also improved, he said.
But that doesn’t quite explain the sudden drop in 2018. Smartphones and social media have been popular among youth for more than a decade and there seems to be no indication that law enforcement techniques made a sudden advance in 2018.
“It may have been an anomaly,” Lowery said. “We’re going to continue to watch the trend.”
Epoch Times reporter Petr Svab and Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.
