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 Case Updates with Photos

Charles Edward Collingwood


Collingwood, date, approximate 1979; John Rodney McRae in 2005
Date Missing 12/12/1979
Missing From
Sharpes, Florida
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Male
Race
White
Date of Birth 08/26/1959 (63)
Age 20 years old
Height and Weight 5'7, 130 pounds
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian male. Brown hair, brown eyes. Collingwood has tattoos on his left hand and fingers, a tattoo on his right arm and a tattoo on his left forearm. His nickname is Eddy and he may use the name Ed Charles Collingwood.
Details of Disappearance Collingwood was an inmate at Brevard Correctional Institution in Sharpes, Florida in 1979; he was serving a four-year sentence for car theft. He was doing landscape work outside the fence on December 12 of that year when he told a guard he was going to that bathroom. He has never been heard from again and was assumed to have escaped.
John Rodney McRae is the prime and only suspect in Collingwood's . A photograph of him is posted with this summary. He was a guard at the prison and lived in a trailer on the grounds. There were allegations that he and Collingwood were having an inappropriate relationship.
McRae denied the affair and said Collingwood was an informer who told him about the activities of other inmates. Prison officials, however, feel the two men were in fact sexually involved with one another, and that Collingwood was trying to expose the affair before he disappeared.
McRae murdered and dismembered an 8-year-old Michigan boy in the 1950s, when he was only sixteen. He served twenty years in prison for the crime. From 1976 to 1980, he worked as a guard at the Brevard Correctional Institution, which houses mostly teenagers. While McRae was working there, five local boys disappeared.McRae resigned his position at the prison and moved to his native Michigan in March 1980, four months after Collingwood's disappearance.
McRae is considered a suspect in the disappearances of twelve-year-old Kipling Hess in 1979 and thirteen-year-old Keith Fleming in 1977. Neither of the boys were ever found. McRae was convicted of the 1987 murder of a 14-year-old boy, Randy Ray Laufer. His conviction was later overturned on appeal, but he was convicted again in May 2005 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
70 years old and wheelchair-bound at the time of the retrial, he was found in his cell only two weeks later, dead of intestinal ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Investigators strongly believe that McRae committed more murders than he was convicted of, including the murders of Kipling, Keith and Collingwood. They even offered him immunity from prosecution if he would reveal where the boys' bodies were, but he always maintained his innocence. His wife, however, stated he had admitted the Hess and Collingwood murders to her.
Collingwood's remains unsolved. He had a history of escapes, but he would usually follow a particular pattern after he escaped, and after his last one he didn't. Other inmates implicated McRae in assisting Collingwood's escape from the prison. Although he is wanted by the police, foul play is suspected in his .
Investigating Agency
Florida Department of Corrections
850-922-6867
Other
Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Florida Today
The Detroit Free Press
Michigan Attorney General's Office
The Morning Sun
The Detroit 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 Case Updates with Photos