Major changes moving forward for missing persons investigations in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Ohio officials are working to bring missing persons home more quickly through new reforms and legislative changes designed to streamline investigations and improve communication with families.

Gov. Mike DeWine’s Missing Persons Working Group has completed or nearly finished 16 of 18 recommendations they created at the end of their sessions.

The governor created the group to determine to better support families with missing loved ones and tackle challenges law enforcement faces during missing persons investigations.

19 Investigates checked on the group’s progress as the year comes to an end.

“We owe the family members of people who are missing. We owe them our best work,” said Andy Wilson, Ohio Department of Public Safety director.

Families search for decades

Some families of the missing have been searching for answers for months, while others have waited decades. The sister of Judy Martins, who went missing from Kent State in 1978, spoke at one of the working group’s meetings in Columbus in February.

“My brother and I still live with that pain every day,” Nancy Baer said. “I guess that’s what I want to say to everyone here. Is to really listen to the families, and don’t give up on them.”

You can watch our story on the case of Judy Martins here.

Director Wilson led the working group with experts from across the state, including law enforcement, social workers and family advocates. The group developed recommendations ranging from improving information sharing between law enforcement agencies to better communicating with families.

Legislative changes proposed

Some recommendations require changing state law. House Bill 217, known as the “Find Act,” would require law enforcement to enter missing persons cases in a national database called NamUs that helps connect the missing to unidentified remains.

19 Investigates spoke with one of the lawmakers working on that bill earlier this year.

“What’s key about this issue is just shining a light on it,” Wilson said. “There are an awful lot of kids that are missing. There’s an awful lot of people that are missing. And I just don’t think the general public has an idea of what a serious problem this is.”

The goal is to streamline processes for police without creating additional barriers.

“One of the problems in these cases is you just don’t want to put barriers into the investigation that will cause delay or that will detract from actually on the ground type of investigation,” Wilson said. “Or ultimately cause the case to go cold, because there’s so much red tape you’ve got to deal with.”Cell phone evidence challenges

Another bill being drafted would allow police to search phones in “high-risk” missing person cases with an administrative search warrant. Currently, investigators must show a crime likely happened to get a search warrant, which is not always possible in missing person cases.

Cell phones can hold key evidence, including a missing person’s last known location, pictures and texts.

“Even where there is some situations or some circumstances that make it look like the person, there may be a crime or there’s foul play, a lot of times that’s not even enough to get you over that probable cause threshold,” Wilson said.

Training improvements

The working group also recommended establishing advanced training for detectives, including mentoring with more experienced investigators and giving detectives a way to get input on their cases from investigators across the state.

Wilson encouraged the public to take action when something seems wrong.

“If you see a kid out there that just something’s not right, a lot of times you get that, the spidey that something feels off, you know, just ask those questions or call 911,” he said. “It’s always better to take action and be wrong than to not take action and have a child hurt or murdered.”

 
The Ohio Department of Public Safety wants to dispel a common myth that people must wait 24 hours to report a missing person.

Officials are promoting a public awareness campaign emphasizing that concerned family members can report someone missing right away.

You can find the final report from the Ohio Missing Persons Working Group here.

We’ll continue to follow these state bills as they work their way through the legislature and any other changes coming out of this group.