galateasca
Member
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2004
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 36
I am so sorry. I was in mid comment when my dog got ill and we have been at animal emergency most of the day. That is why I ended my above post so abruptly. What I was trying to say is that in general we were a much less worried society in the 1970s. No one talked "stranger danger" until much later, except to say not to take candy from strange people- without much of an explanation as to why( I thought it was because I was chubby.) Most of the public service announcements of the time had to do with not smoking, not polluting and Smokey the Bear telling us not to start forest fires.
Also remember that while people did go missing, LE at the time tended to think of almost all missing kids over the age of 10 as runaways and that there was at least a 24 hour turn around before police became involved in most cases. The thought was that most kids were either hiding in the house, sleeping at a friend's house or hiding somewhere until the next day, in a ploy to show their parents either their independence or as a sign of rebellion. Unless there was some tangible proof of violence, LE tended to lay low for a bit.
It was also the era before computers and LE from different jurisdictions did not communicate with each other. Several cases have been solved where the missing disappeared from one county, but their remains were found two counties over (for instance) and the different LE didn't have a way to communicate efficiently, thereby not having identification take almost 30 years (Stephanie Stempell in Florida comes to mind).
This is in NO WAY an indictment of LE- it just was what it was during the time period. Because of John Walsh's involvement after the tragic loss of his son, we now have NCMEC, police protocols in place, and much later Amber Alerts, Levi's Call, Mattie's Call, faces on milk cartons and the rest. Before that, sometimes newspapers would run stories, but not often and if these stories were run, follow ups almost never were, placing whether or not a missing person was found in doubt.
Also remember that while people did go missing, LE at the time tended to think of almost all missing kids over the age of 10 as runaways and that there was at least a 24 hour turn around before police became involved in most cases. The thought was that most kids were either hiding in the house, sleeping at a friend's house or hiding somewhere until the next day, in a ploy to show their parents either their independence or as a sign of rebellion. Unless there was some tangible proof of violence, LE tended to lay low for a bit.
It was also the era before computers and LE from different jurisdictions did not communicate with each other. Several cases have been solved where the missing disappeared from one county, but their remains were found two counties over (for instance) and the different LE didn't have a way to communicate efficiently, thereby not having identification take almost 30 years (Stephanie Stempell in Florida comes to mind).
This is in NO WAY an indictment of LE- it just was what it was during the time period. Because of John Walsh's involvement after the tragic loss of his son, we now have NCMEC, police protocols in place, and much later Amber Alerts, Levi's Call, Mattie's Call, faces on milk cartons and the rest. Before that, sometimes newspapers would run stories, but not often and if these stories were run, follow ups almost never were, placing whether or not a missing person was found in doubt.
