The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "child abduction" ...
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Walking into Danger
The unprecedented investigation takes an in-depth look at child abduction in Chicago. The reporters found that every other day a stranger tries to lure or force a child into a building or vehicle. Furthermore, the majority of these predators avoided prison time due to breakdowns in the legal system.
Tags: child abduction; kidnapping; sex offender; youth; predator
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The Stolen Child
This is a story of the disappearance of Misty Copsey; currently it remains a cold-case left unsolved. A fall afternoon in 1992, the day Misty never came home from the county fair. This series sheds “new light on an investigation plagued by police blunders”. It also “uncovered the malignant impact of an intrusive bystander’s obsession and exposed the foibles of small-town cops whose missteps and misstatements went unchallenged for two decades”.
Tags: police; law enforcement; kidnapped; Diane Smith; Puyallup; police department; runaway; vanish; abduction; evidence; investigation
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"Lost Kids"
Child safety advocates say that a child is lost in the U.S. every 40 seconds. It often takes hours for them to be found and reunited with a parent. The Early Show did an experiment with a child actor in a New York City park and found that more people stopped to help a lost dog than a lost child. Experts say people are often afraid to approach strange children in public for fear of being misidentified as paedophiles.
Tags: Child safety; abductions; ID tags; day-care safety
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Innocents Abroad
Parents have resorted to abductions, sometimes with violent consequences, in order to gain custody of their children because the international system designed to mediate such disputes is fatally flawed. Newsday documented cases in which parents hired mercenaries to snatch back their children from foreign countries. The reporter also documented cases in which, even when courts rule that parents have the right to gain custody of their children, a jumbled legal system often prevents of delays lawful transfers for years. There are more than 1,000 American children being unlawfully held overseas.
Tags: abduction; custody; mercenaries; child recovery; parental kidnapping; Hague Convention on International Child Abduction; U.S. Borders; recovering abducted children; child custody; Hague Treaty; international custody; International Courts; Parental Kidnapping Crime Act; FBI
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Missing
"The series examines the Indiana Missing Children Clearinghouse list and the errors and compelling cases it contains. The major finding in day one of the series: the names of 16 children from Northwest Indiana remained on the list for month and in some cases years, even though they were no longer missing because police were not following up in the cases... Day two of the series deals with the issue of child runaways and the limited power existing state laws give the police, courts and parents to deal with the problem. Day three... The Times learned that international law can do nothing to help return children taken to certain countries..."
Tags: children; abduction; missing; runaways; police; courts; international law; custody battles; parents
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Child Abduction Underground
KGO-TV got a tip from a father that had failed to find his two daughters after six months of search. "He explained his ex-wife had abducted the girls during a nasty custody dispute. The mother was in jail refusing to tell the judge where she had hidden the girls." KGO was able to retraces the woman's steps and identified the group of people holding the girls. The man leading that group was a child molester, and KGO did a report about that, so the rest of the group members feared for the girls safety and took them to the TV station.
Tags: child abduction; child abuse; molester; Grand Jury; San Francisco International Airport; TAPE; TV; TRANSCRIPT
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Little girl, lost. Ten years after Heidi Seeman's disappearance and murder, her family copes --and still waits for justice.
The story of a missing child, Heidi Seeman, and the problems to solve the case. Details of the crime and suspects have trickled out over the years, but there has been no resolution.
Tags: children; disappearance; abuse; murder; abduction; kids; child
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Who Killed Amy?
One decade has passed since the murder of Amy Mihaljevic in Bay Village, Ohio. "Now, the Bay Village police and the FBI are bringing the full details of the case -- and a startling new psychological profile of the killer -- to the public in hopes of catching a killer."
Tags: Crime; kidnapping; child abduction
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Lost Children
CBS News reports "The story begins in Britain directly after World War II. Battered and poor, Britain embarked on a scheme to clear out its overflowing children's homes. By the thousands, children as young as three were ... shipped halfway across the world to Australia to start a 'new life' with new families. All of these children were told their parents were dead... The children, none older than 15, arrived with no birth certificates, no passports and no families waiting to take them in. Many were condemned to childhoods of virtual slave labor in institutions run by religious orders. Some of the boys were sexually abused.... They weren't orphans at all. Most had families back in Britain who never know what had become of their children and had been lied to by authorities..."
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT abduction child migrants 1947 Bindoon child labor
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A Night of Terror: One Year Later
The East Oregonian reports "On Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1998, Eric Shannon and companion, Robin Hocker, held his parents at gun point while they abducted five of their seven children. Hocker was eight months pregnant at the time. The children had been placed in their grandparents' home under protective custody by Services to Children and Families. This story is a recount of that night's event, which ultimately led to a shoot-out between Shannon and local law enforcement agencies. Shannon was killed in that shoot-out. His death marked the only fatality for 1998 at the hands of an Oregon State Trooper."
Tags: crime police shooting drug abuse child abuse custody battle