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
Jody Lee Ledkins
Jody, date, approximate 1985; Age-progression to age 44 (date, approximate 2014)
Date Missing 05/23/1985
Missing From
Kansas City, Missouri
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 09/20/1970 (52)
Age 14 years old
Height and Weight 5'1, 90 pounds
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde/brown hair, blue eyes. Jody has a small mole under her chin, an appendectomy scar on her abdomen, and a large birthmark under one of her arms. She wore large round eyeglasses at the time of her disappearance, and her teeth were in excellent condition.
Details of Disappearance Jody was last seen at her boyfriend's house in the 700 block of Cambridge Street in Kansas City, Missouri on May 23, 1985. She had an argument with her boyfriend and other friends on the day of her disappearance. She apparently wanted to accompany them to their destination, but they refused.
Jody walked to a friend's residence near east 14th Street and Winchester Avenue and, at 10:00 p.m., she called her mother, Karen Stratton, and asked for a ride home to the 6800 block of east Topping Street.
Stratton did not have her car and Jody told her she had friends who could give her a ride. When she left her friend's house, her friend assumed she was going back to her boyfriend's. She was last seen walking northbound on Winchester from 14th Street. She was never heard from again. She did not take any money or extra clothing with her when she disappeared.
Jody was enrolled in a juvenile probation program at the time she disappeared. (She and a friend had had a run-in with a security guard in 1984, and Jody had also been in trouble for truancy). After her disappearance, Stratton contacted her worker and the worker filed two warrants, listing Jody as an endangered juvenile who should be detained by authorities if she was spotted.
Stratton assumed that the warrants also meant juvenile authorities had filed a missing child report with law enforcement; they had not. Law enforcement never considered Jody as a missing person until 1987, two years following her disappearance, because they had not been notified. As a result, Jody's was obviously extremely delayed and clues were minimal by the time the investigation began.
Jody's probation officer got a letter about four years after Jody was last seen. The writer claimed to be Jody and said she was doing well and one day she might say why she decided to leave. Stratton compared the handwriting with a previous letter Jody had written her probation officer, but isn't sure whether or not it's the same writing.
In 1993, Stratton got a series of threatening phone calls at her home that lasted two years. The caller(s) demanded money in exchange for Jody's safe return and at one point threatened to send Jody's body to her "in pieces."
Stratton started recording the calls and sent them to the police, who traced them to a Kansas City phone booth, but the caller(s) were never identified. In 1997, police dragged the Missouri River after two prison inmates claimed they had information on the . Their tip went nowhere, but it led the Kansas City Police Department to reclassify Jody's as a probable homicide.
Stratton now lives in Arkansas but visits Kansas City a few times every year to search for her daughter. She stated Jody's home life in 1985 was dysfunctional and Stratton didn't get along with her father, and she thinks it's possible her daughter deliberately chose to leave.
Investigators have also considered that theory, but they think that whatever the cause of Jody's disappearance, something might have happened that jeopardized her safety. Jody's remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
Kansas City Police Department
816-234-5140
Other
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Crime News 2000
The Kansas City Star
What Happened to Jody Ledkins
Kansas City Police Department
Jody Ledkins's Mother's Facebook Page
KSHB 41
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
