'Missing' to 'Recovered': Finding Abducted Kids

Jan. 13, 2007 — -- "RECOVERED," written in bold red letters across the photo of a young Shawn Hornbeck, was a word his family hoped, but was unsure, it would ever see.

The 4'8" brown-haired, brown-eyed boy pictured behind those letters is one of the lucky ones. Four and a half years after that photo was taken, Hornbeck, now a young man, has come home.

"MISSING" is the word more commonly printed over the faces of children listed on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site. Nearly 800,000 children disappear every year in the United States.

While 99 percent of those children are found, the one percent who are not represent 5,000 to 10,000 children; children who are out there, somewhere, perhaps waiting to be rescued.

The odds were against Hornbeck. Seventy-four percent of missing children in cases like Hornbeck's are killed within the first three hours of abduction. A child rescued after years of captivity is almost unheard of.

"No question that Shawn has beaten the odds" said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). "The longer it goes, the lower the likelihood of finding them safely."

NCMEC played a vital role in locating Hornbeck. Founded 22 years ago, shortly after the Missing Children's Act was passed in 1982, the center has been the most influential advocate for locating missing children. Since 1990, the recovery rate for missing children has climbed from just 62 percent to 96.3 percent today.

Allen attributes that success partly to the development of new technology.

"Simply the ability to transmit images and information instantly across America and the world has revolutionized the search for children," said Allen.

There are also new laws that aid investigators in missing children cases. The most important did away with waiting periods that required children to be missing 24 to 72 hours before being officially declared as "missing."