'I deal with facts and logic. But I know that this was god'
Three hours.
That's all the time police generally have if they want to find a child alive after he or she has been abducted by a stranger, the U.S. Justice Department says.
(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)
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Family's happy ending
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Thursday: Public policy and law enforcement.
Three hours.
That's the amount of time an Oak Park family searched frantically for their abducted 6-year-old this past June.
Little Linnea Miller was found unharmed . . . in almost exactly three hours.
"I'm so thankful. I'm so grateful. God is so good and so merciful," Linnea's mother, Cindy Miller, 46, said softly one recent day as Linnea and her twin sister, Annaliese, played at her feet, on her lap and around her neck.
"Every time you see her, you know she could not be here."
Linnea was one of at least 480,000 kids reported missing in the United States this year, through late September, figures show. During the same period, more than 125,000 adult cases were tallied.
In Illinois last year, the numbers included 38,000 juveniles, with roughly 12,000 in the city of Chicago.
Historically, few cases -- in spite of public perception -- involve stranger abductions, according to experts and records.
And except for rare instances, most missing kids turn up fine.
In Linnea's abduction, her kidnapper lured her from her yard, drove her around, then simply dropped her off on the Northwest Side, where neighbors helped reunite her with her family.
"The good news is that [nationally] close to 96 percent will be found or come home on their own, or somehow law enforcement will trip over them and they'll be returned fine," said Jerry Nance of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
In Chicago, the missing persons clearance rate is about 98 percent.
A federal study found that 45 percent of missing kids were either runaways or "thrownaways," a term for kids kicked out of their homes by caretakers.
Another 43 percent were reported missing as a result of miscommunication.
Nine percent were victims of abductions. Most of those kids were snatched by family members.
But clearly there are brutal exceptions -- nearly one of every two abductions by a stranger ends with the child being killed. Then there are the miracles.
Linnea's dad, Jay, needed to run out quickly on June 30 to drop daughter Bridget at violin lessons.
So he left the family's west suburban home and left his 12-year-old son in charge. Linnea was fine. She was playing outside in the fenced-in backyard.
But when Jay returned 10 minutes later, at 12:10 p.m., she was nowhere to be found. Cindy, who had been running errands, arrived home at 12:30 p.m.
Soon, a massive search was under way with the help of police, neighbors, church members and local Boy Scouts.
By 1:30 p.m., fliers were all over town. No Linnea.
"I started to get a bad, sinking feeling," Jay said.
By 2:30 p.m., that feeling kicked in for Cindy.
"Your mind is just frozen numb with fear," the mother said. "You don't even want to think about . . . "
At 3 p.m. the phone rang. "Are you missing a child?" a good samaritan asked.
"Yes!" Cindy screamed, legs buckling as she sobbed.
Now the FBI is searching for Linnea's abductor.
"They told us it never, ever ends this way," said Jay, an engineer. "In my line of work, I deal with facts and logic. But I know that this was God."