Amy Sue Pagnac's Mother and Sister speak with the press

Today, Susan Pagnac Sr. and Susan Pagnac Jr met with the press to talk about the search of Amy's childhood home, where Susan Pagnac Sr. and Amy's father, Marshall Midden, still live.

They spoke a little about the state of the house after the search, which is a mess and in significant disarray. They insist that the house was left in the best condition possible, under the circumstances.  The inconvenience, and the mess is all worth it if they find Amy.

They pointed out that the people working this case are different people than those investigating in the past, and that these new investigators might benefit from hearing any information first hand.

They are asking the public to share any information they have with police, whether or not they have already shared what they know.

Also, they urge members of the public to go to the BCA Clearinghouse web page and view the poster with an age-progressed photo showing what she might look like at age 33 (she is 38 now).

Somebody knows what happened to Amy Sue Pagnac. If you know something, please contact the Maple Grove Police Department, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or the Minnesota BCA Missing Person's Clearinghouse with any information you have.  Every lead is valuable, no matter how small.

This family is very strong in their support for one another, and their support for Amy. Please help by looking at the poster, and sharing what you know.

Missing Children Minnesota Commemorates 30 Years of Service

Governor Dayton has issued a proclamation declaring February 17^th to be Missing Children Minnesota Day.

The Proclamation reads:

Whereas: February 17, 2014 marks the 30^th anniversary of the founding of Missing Children Minnesota; and

Whereas: The education of our children in personal safety and the support of searching families is in the interest of all Minnesotans; and

Whereas: Missing Children Minnesota has tirelessly worked to provide valuable and effective prevention education to the public as well as support for searching families.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, MARK DAYTON, Governor of Minnesota, di hereby proclaim Monday, February 17, 2014, as:

The 30^th Anniversary of Missing Children Minnesota in the state of Minnesota.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Minnesota to be affixed at the State Capitol this 10^th day of February.

Missing Children Minnesota (MCM) was founded on Feb 17th in 1984.

This date is significant for a number of reasons in the missing children community.  It is the birthdays of two of Minnesota’s long-term missing children; Jacob Wetterling and Corrine Erstad. More specific to Missing Children Minnesota, February 17^th is also the day that our Executive Director, Carol Watson’s missing son was found safe. Hope for the missing, gratitude for those who have been found safe, and remembrance for those found injured or deceased motivate us to continue our mission into the future.

The mission of Missing Children Minnesota is to help in locating missing children; to provide advocacy and support services to families of missing children and to provide information and prevention education to the public regarding missing children and runaways.

In addition to search assistance, we also provide four critically acclaimed educational programs to children and adults throughout Minnesota and all across the country. Every year, MCM presents abduction prevention and personal safety programs to schools, daycare centers, early childhood and family education groups, churches and children's vacation camps.

We hope that by providing children with the information they need to be safer this year, we will have fewer missing children next year. In 2013 MCM provided education to approximately 2,000 adults and children, and search assistance for 32 searching families.

You can bring our education programs to children in your area or contact us about a missing child by calling (612) 334-9449, or by e-mailing inquiries to StaffMCM@gmail.com. Our phone is staffed 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year.

Our assistance to searching families is always free of charge.

You can learn more about Missing Children Minnesota by following us on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MissingChildMN

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Missing-Children-Minnesota/164298202632?ref=hl

January is National Stalking Awareness Month

As we begin the New Year, we look forward to our continued mission to bring lessons of personal safety to all of Minnesota's children.

Our programs for children, teachers, parents and law enforcement stress the concept of it being OK to say "no" to unwanted contact, and the right to feel safe in your home, school, neighborhood and other places that are important to you and your well-being.

Stalking is a very important issue that touches on this concept. A stalker will often use a person's connection to a place, or need to be somewhere as a tool to maintain unwanted contact, as well as to force interactions that are intrusive, unwanted, and even dangerous.

Stalking is not only frightening, it is a kind of theft.  The stalker steals the victim's "zone of safety", in a way.

While the victim might or might not come to any physical harm, and the stalker might in fact not intend any harm, there is still harm done. Everyone has a right to feel safe, and to say "no" to unwanted contact.

In our education programs, we teach this concept of feeling free to say "no", and the need to respect "no" from others from the very earliest ages that our programs reach.

Anti-stalking laws are important, proper enforcement is important, and personal safety techniques are important skills to have, but the place where we can have the most impact is to teach our children to respect boundaries from a very young age, to insist that their own boundaries be respected, and to back up others when they see boundaries being asserted and violated.

For more information about Stalking in the U.S., please read this report from the Department of Justice and the CDC.

November: National Runaway Prevention Month

November is Runaway Prevention Month, and we’d like to start the month by discussing GLBT youth: an underserved and under recognized group of children who become missing because they run away from, or are thrown away by their families.

GLBT youth tend to experience a greater exposure to the risk factors for runaway/thrown away situations:

• ·      Rejection by family
• ·      Rejection by peers
• ·      Bullying at school
• ·      Exposure to community violence (either first or second hand)
• ·      Internalized hate/rejection
• ·      Isolation and lack of support structure

What can we do to reduce the risk of bad outcomes for the GLBT youth in our state? 

• ·      Promote great ideas like the Family Acceptance Project, a program that helps families have honest and authentic conversations with their GLBT children in a way that reduces the feelings of personal rejection, hostility, and isolation that can arise as families grapple with these issues.
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• ·      Encourage our schools and community organizations to adopt responsive and sensible “zero tolerance” policies that are solution and reconciliation –oriented, that promise to address EVERY incident of bullying, record the incident, create a resolution appropriate to the situation (not one size fits all), record the resolution and commitments of all parties, and hold them accountable.
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• ·      Model appropriate behavior for our own children in our own families, and not accept violence of any kind toward anyone. Even if a family has opinions that make them unable to accept a person’s sexual orientation, they can model respectful behavior toward all people, and let their children know that they expect the same level of behavior.
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• ·      Contribute our time, energy and money to organizations that work to reduce community violence and promote personal and community safety.  Missing Children Minnesota provides a runaway prevention program for all children called Erica’s Choices.
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• ·        Contribute our time, energy, and money to groups that provide support and advocacy for GLBT youth.  Groups such as PFLAG and District 202 are good local groups that help support our young people.

Case study: Concerned Great-Grandmother

Case overview:

Rowena called us to see if there was anything that we could do to help her grand-daughter, Alicia, recover her two-year-old son, Mikael.

Alicia had broken off an abusive relationship, and obtained a Temporary Restraining Order against Paul.  The Paul denied paternity of Mikael. Alicia was the only parent listed on the birth certificate, and Paul never legally established paternity, and has never contributed to the support of his child.

However, Paul’s mother showed an interest in Mikael, and frequently had him for visitation. After the break-up of the relationship, Paul moved back into the house with his mother. During a visitation following an incident where Mikael had been hospitalized for a serious infection, Paul refused to allow them to pick up Mikael for the follow-up appointment.

Rowena and Alicia made repeated attempts to contact Paul or Paul’s mother, and to retrieve Mikael. There was no answer at the door, or to phone calls.  On one occasion, Paul answered the door, threw things at Rowena, cursed her out, and threatened her with violence.

Rowena believed that Paul was only keeping Mikael as a way of torturing Alicia, to perpetuate the cycle of abuse that she had broken when she ended the relationship, and got a restraining order.

Everyone Rowena contacted informed her that this was a custody matter not a criminal matter, and that Alicia needed an attorney. It would be months before they could get a court hearing.

Action taken by MCM:

Our volunteer (under the supervision of Case Manager, Millie Ives) informed Rowena of Alicia’s rights under Minnesota State Statute 609.26 and referred them to the Hennepin County Family Court Self-Help Center, where Alicia was able to apply for a Temporary Custody Order.  After the TCO was granted, the police accompanied Rowena to the home where Mikael was being held, and retrieved him safely.

Result:

Child was safely returned to his custodial parent, and process was begun to establish a permanent legal custody order establishing Alicia as the legal and custodial parent for Mikael.  Case was closed in three days.

 (All names changed to protect the privacy of our clients and their families)

Finding your child is a new beginning

This is really great news for one searching mom, but the story does not stop with finding her children.

Monday, June 7, 2010
A Southern California mother whose two children were reported missing 15 years ago has been able to find them — using Facebook.
The mom is not being identified. But authorities say the children's father, Faustino Utreta left with the children in 1995 — when they were ages 2 and 3. A district attorney for San Bernadino, California says the mom found her daughter's Facebook profile after searching the social networking site in March.
An official says the two children — a 17-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy — are now in the custody of the state of Florida. For now, the two teenagers are being cared for by a non-relative in Florida with whom the pair have an existing relationship.
The father has been charged with kidnapping and with violating child custody orders.

We have found that social media is an excellent way for parents to search for their missing children, especially children who have run away. Our case manager (Millie Ives) has closed a number of cases, old and new, by looking for the missing children on Facebook. 

Many missing kids neglect their online data footprint, and leave their accounts open to the public, and post freely about where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing. We wish that more kids would take safety precautions with their personal data, but if that information is available to help their parents locate them, we will use it to help bring them home safe. We know for sure, that those who prey on kids do not hesitate to use this information to harm them, and we want to get them home safely before that happens.

We have also helped parents find missing kids by reminding them that if they are paying for their child’s phone, they can have the service provider locate the phone. If there is a missing person’s report on the child, the police can be tipped off to their location if necessary.

We have not had any cases of reunifications of long-time missing through social media as of yet, but one thing to remember about this particular case, is that these children will likely be reunited with a mother that they have no memories of, and no relationship with. 

The whole family will need lots of professional help and support to build healthy and sustainable relationships. It is a shame that the children were denied contact with and knowledge of their mother and their relatives in their mother’s family for so long. This sort of situation can cause difficulties for children that they may not even recognize or understand until many years in the future.

But at least these young people now have the choice to get to know their mother and work to make up for all that lost time.  We wish them the best for their futures, and hope for all the missing to come home.

They are NOT "OK": When children run away or are abducted by family members

Too often, when news of a missing child comes across the wire, we hear people say things like “Oh, she ‘just’ ran away” or “He’s fine.  His mother took him, how bad can it be if he’s with his mother?”

It is important to get past this idea as a society that there are different “classes” of missing. Yes, different circumstances require different search and recovery efforts, but there should not be a sense that certain kinds of missing do not count, or are not important.

Some things for you to think about regarding run-aways, and abductions by a family member (sometimes referred to as “family abductions”).

In a “family abduction”

·         A child’s sense of safety, well-being, as well as mental and emotional health is violated when they are taken without warning and kept away from their custodial care-giver, their home, their friends, and their normal routine.  Even when they are returned in good health and uninjured, they are at risk to experience anxiety, depression, and other psychological problems.

·         Many children in family abductions have been told that the left-behind parent gave them away, is very angry with them, doesn’t love them anymore, or was killed. Some have been given disturbing and terrifying descriptions of the death of the left-behind parent.

·         Often, children abducted by family members have had their entire identity erased, had to give up favorite activities that they found comforting, and had to go by a different name. They are robbed of the right to their own sense of self.

·         Some children abducted by family members have been kept out of school, and not allowed normal social interaction, education, or medical care because of the risk that they will be recognized.

·         Children abducted by family members are often neglected or abused as the abducting parent fails to cope with the stresses of single parent-hood on the run…or when they are left in the care of others while the parent is distracted by the difficulties of a disrupted life.

·         It is not unusual for the abducting parent to take the child as a way of continuing a cycle of abuse of the custodial parent.  The child becomes an object used to torture the other parent. This is very damaging.

In the case of “runaways”

·         Not all cases categorized as “runaways” are actually run-aways.  Just because they are a teenager with problems, it does not mean that they are missing because they ran away.

·         A child might initially have run-away, but once they leave their zone of safety, they are at risk for a subsequent abduction.

·         Most runaways will be approached by a predator or a trafficker within 48 hours of leaving their zone of safety.

·         Runaways are sometimes running from real danger in their lives.  Just because they have run away from their support system, this does not mean that the danger cannot follow them and find them, it just means that they are cut off from help.

One of the things that we do at Missing Children Minnesota, is take call after call from people looking for their missing children who have been told by every person they have asked for help that there is nothing that can be done to look for their missing child. They’re told that when the non-custodial parent kidnaps their child, it is a “custody battle”, not a kidnapping. They’re told there is a waiting period.

Sometimes, as many as a half a dozen people in a month call us about their missing children. We are the first people to tell them their rights, refer them to resources, give them the language that lets them engage the system to work on their behalf. We are the first to provide real solutions and tools rather  than give them the brush-off because their cases are not recognized as missing children and abduction cases.

This needs to change, and the only way to change it is to increase public awareness of the problem, and public pressure for proper training and response of our system to uphold our laws and meet the needs of the missing and their families.