Tarheel Writer - Missing Children

The Charley Project
Profiling over 16,000 missing people

The Tarheel Writer - On the Web since 24 February 2003. Celebrating 21 Years on the Internet!

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    The Charley Project profiles over 16,000 “cold case” missing people mainly from the United States. It does not actively investigate cases; it is merely a publicity vehicle for missing people who are often neglected by the press and forgotten all too soon.
    The Charley Project began as the Missing Persons Cold Case Network (MPCCN), which was founded in 2001 by Jennifer Marra. It was designed as a publicity vehicle for cold cases of missing people. (Jennifer Marra had also founded The Doe Network.) She resigned from the MPCCN and turned control in December 2003 over to Meaghan Good. Meaghan ran it until March 2004, when it was attacked by hackers and had to be taken offline. Meaghan founded The Charley Project in October 2004; it contains much of the content of the former MPCCN.
    You can search cases by alphabetical, chronological and geographical search parameters.
    Donations are accepted, but not expected; the site remains free-access for all. The Charley Prohject ia NOT a registered non-profit organization and any donations will NOT be tax-deductable.

    This site has been added to my site because of some high-profile cold cases that I read about.

    Etan Patz was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.

Etan's disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25 — the anniversary of Etan's disappearance — as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.

John "Johnny" David Gosch (November 12, 1969 – disappeared September 5, 1982) was a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Johnny Gosch

Johnny's picture was among the first to be featured on milk cartons as part of a campaign to find missing children. As of 2024, there have been no arrests made and the case is now considered cold, but remains open. Johnny was 13 at the time he disappeared.

A very similar case involving the disappearance of paperboy in Des Moines is that of Engene Wade Martin.

On Sunday morning, August 12, 1984, 13-year-old Eugene Martin left his home at approximately 5 a.m. to deliver the Des Moines Register newspaper in the Des Moines area. He wore blue jeans, a red shirt and a gray pullover. Eugene normally delivered the papers with his older stepbrother, but on this day went alone. The Iowa State Fair was in town, and Eugene — who in his free time enjoyed football, fishing, skating, video games and TV — wanted to make some extra money.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. NCMEC works with families, victims, private industry, law enforcement, and the public to assist with preventing child abductions, recovering missing children, and providing services to deter and combat child sexual exploitation.