Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
Jillian Dee Cutshall
Jillian, date, approximate 1987; Age-progression to age 34 (date, approximate 2012)
Date Missing 08/13/1987
Missing From
Norfolk, Nebraska
Missing Classification Non-Family Abduction
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 02/19/1978 (44)
Age 9 years old
Height and Weight 4'6, 65 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A purple shirt, blue jeans and white Nike sneakers.
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Jillian's teeth are crooked. She has a two-inch vertical scar on the crown of her head and a horizontal scar on her right upper lip. Her nickname is Jill.
Details of Disappearance Jillian was last seen at approximately 6:30 a.m. on August 13, 1987 in Norfolk, Nebraska. Her parents are divorced and she lived in Grand Bend, Kansas with her mother, Joyce Cutshall, and her brother.
She was visiting her stepmother and her father, Roger Cutshall, in Norfolk when she disappeared. They lived in McNeely Apartments. She didn't like to stay in their apartment alone, so when they left for work early that morning, she started walking to her babysitter's residence four blocks away.
Jillian never arrived and has not been seen again. Her babysitter assumed she'd decided to stay home, and she wasn't missed until after 3:00 p.m., when her stepmother went to the babysitter's home to pick her up and found out she wasn't there.
Three months after her disappearance, her clothes, shoes and keys were found in the Wood Duck Wildlife Refuge in Stanton, Nebraska, ten miles from her father's home.
In 1988, a tip led Joyce to David C. Phelps, a man who lived in Roger's apartment building and had met Jillian. Police interviewed him twice in the spring of 1988.
In the second interview, he told a detective he had been molesting children since he was in his teens and preferred blonde girls between the ages of four and six. He described six incidents of sexual contact with girls. Charges were never filed in connection with any of the alleged assaults. Phelps stated he liked Jillian's blue eyes, but that she was "too old" for his liking.
In January 1989, a private investigator hired by Joyce drove Phelps to the wildlife refuge where Jillian's clothes were found. Later that day, Phelps gave a statement to a television crew the investigator had waiting and stated that he and another neighbor, Kermit Baumgartner, who had a record for sexual assault, took Jillian to the refuge.
Phelps described the child's clothes and undergarments correctly and said he held her down while Baumgartner molested her. He stated he became nervous and left Baumgartner and Jillian alone in the refuge and drove back home, and he never saw the child again.
Baumgartner denied having had anything to do with Jillian's disappearance and he has never been charged in connection with it. When police interviewed Phelps, he recanted his previous statements, stating they were coerced by the private investigator.
He was released without charge, as authorities didn't think they had enough evidence. Both men left the state shortly afterwards; Baumgartner went to California and Phelps to Iowa.
Joyce started a petition drive that forced a grand jury to convene and open an investigation. The grand jury indicted Phelps for abduction with intent to commit sexual assault. He was convicted in the spring of 1991 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Joyce died in Norfolk in 2022 at the age of 68, 35 years after her daughter's disappearance. In her obituary, it was noted that Jillian predeceased her. Jillian's brother and his children are alive, as well as other members of the extended family.
No one has been charged with causing Jillian's death, although she was declared ly dead after Phelps's conviction. She has never been located.
Investigating Agency
Norfolk Police Department
402-644-8700
Other
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Child Protection Education of America
APB News
The Child Seek Network
The Los Angeles Times
The Charlotte Observer
The Hutchinson News
Nebraska Supreme Court
The Lincoln Journal-Star
The Norfolk Daily News
Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
