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
Laurie Allison Smith
Smith, date, approximate 1977
Date Missing 02/08/1977
Missing From
Tucson, Arizona
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 09/28/1954 (68)
Age 22 years old
Height and Weight 5'4, 115 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A toe ring on her middle toe.
Associated Vehicle(s) Maroon Karmann Ghia (accounted for), Rented blue Ford Maverick (accounted for)
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Smith goes by her middle name, Allison. She had her first four bicuspids removed for the orthodontic braces she wore when she was younger. She still had her wisdom teeth at the time of her disappearance, and she had fillings in five molars. Smith has a tattoo of a Pegasus, a mythical flying horse, on her shoulder. She wears eyeglasses or contact lenses. Her ears are pierced.
Details of Disappearance Smith was last seen in Tucson, Arizona on February 8, 1977. She lived with her boyfriend and attended Pima Community College; her family lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Smith's former landlord, Chauncey Lee Mast, was a drug trafficker in 1977. He normally sold marijuana wholesale, but Smith occasionally sold it in small quantities for him. He would also occasionally give her $50 to drive out to remote locations and deliver large amounts of marijuana to buyers.
On one such trip, Smith was robbed by thieves disguised as plainclothes police officers, who "confiscated" the drugs. When Smith told Mast about this, he vowed to get revenge on the persons responsible.
Several months later, on the day of her disappearance, Mast sent Smith out to receive large quantities of marijuana from a supplier in a remote area. This was her first such errand; previously, she had only done deliveries. Although Smith was very particular about her appearance, she wasn't dressed in her usual manner the day she vanished and she wore her glasses, not her contacts.
She drove off in a rented blue Ford Maverick at sunset and never returned. Her maroon Karmann Ghia was found left behind at her apartment in the 1400 block of east Blackridge Drive, as were all her other belongings.
In December 1977, the Ford Maverick she'd been driving was located about a block from the apartment she had previously rented from Mast. It had been parked there for months. The car's spare tire was in the backseat and there was a single marijuana seed in the trunk.
Twelve years before Smith vanished, in 1966, Mast was charged with the murder of his wife. He was accused of killing her, then engineering a flaming car crash along an isolated stretch of U.S. Route 93 south of Wikieup, Arizona to cover up the murder. His wife's badly burned body was found in the front seat of the burning vehicle.
Mast was tried three times, but the twice the jury was unable to reach a verdict and one trial ended in a mistrial. The prosecution decided not to try him a fourth time. He died in Oregon in 2011. It's never been proven he was involved in Smith's disappearance. Her remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
Tucson Police Department
520-351-3713
Other
NamUs
The Tucson Daily Citizen
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
