Searching for Missing & Endangered Children
Even the most funded, experienced, well-staffed police departments have to make difficult decisions regarding where their money and manpower goes, even in the case of missing children. This means that the label of “runaway” in cases of minor missing children who run away from home—especially if the child has a documented history of running away—often forces the file to the bottom of an investigator’s pile. Leads are lost and the trail goes cold while families in crisis wait desperately for answers. At Lauth, we never label missing children as runaways. We know a child on their own is a child at risk, and we treat every stage of the investigation with dogged due-diligence.
Sex Trafficking
Unfortunately, the missing children at the most risk are the cases that do not get the attention they deserve. NCMEC received 23,500 reports of endangered runaways in 2018. One in seven of those children were estimated to be victims of sex trafficking. The average age of those victims was 15 years old—children with just enough agency to disappear on their own, who immediately become vulnerable to the predation of the world outside their childhood home. Parents can do their best to keep their children close to home, however, the ubiquity of the internet makes it easier than ever to lure potential victims from their homes and traffic them.
A private investigator like the missing person investigators of Lauth have a tiny fraction of the caseload that law enforcement personnel juggle every day. We can prioritize your missing child case in the interest of swiftest recovery. Hiring a missing person investigator in tandem with an official law enforcement investigation means that during the crucial first 48 hours of your child’s disappearance, there are always experienced and dedicated eyes on your child’s case as a priority can be the difference between acquiring invaluable information and losing a lead. One of the glowing advantages of hiring a private investigator to find your missing child or teen is more autonomy than the average law enforcement officer or investigator. Our investigators can follow leads beyond the bounds of the police’s jurisdiction, and work in tandem as necessary to facilitate the location and recovery of missing children who are at risk and endangered.
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