The strange, slow case of a missing Oxford 12-year-old (EDITORIAL)

Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

EDITORIAL

Dateline: Oxford, Indiana

The strange, slow case of a missing Oxford 12-year-old

After a summer of nearly instantaneous news of child abductions and breathless updates of exhaustive searches broadcast at all times of the day, the case of Nicolas Zavala is certainly an odd one.

Police in Benton County said this week that the 12-year-old Oxford boy hasn't been seen by his family since Aug. 4, when his grandmother says she dropped him off at the library supposedly to meet friends for a camping trip. When Nicolas and his camping buddies - the grandmother, with whom he lived, didn't get their names - didn't come back a week later, police were called. That was Aug. 13.

Seven weeks later, with a theory of parental abduction thrown out after Nicolas' parents were located without him, police took the plea to the public. Police say they aren't even sure what to make of the account.

So much for the Amber Alert-reliance on the first hours a child is missing as the most crucial to finding him again.

In defense of the police, they probably never had a chance at this missing persons report when the trail was even slightly warm. A week was lost on the presumed camping trip more time was wasted chasing down the whereabouts of parents of what police described as a "very streetwise" kid who has spent much of his life as a ward of the court.

Still, elapsed time between initial report and the "have you seen me" bulletins seems curiously long.

It also seems to confirm what experts claimed during the summer, when media, sensing the gripping fear a kidnapping provides for every parent, exploded at the hint of a missing child. The so-called summer of kidnappings proved to be sensational and truly tragic in many individual ways. But the majority of missing child cases fly below the radar, a sad combination of runaways and parental abductions. As in the mysterious disappearance of Nicolas Zavala, these are cases for which an Amber Alert system can't shine hope on.

His disappearance provides a reminder of the balancing act a successful Amber Alert system - the aggressive warning system in place in 11 states being credited for the recovery of more than a dozen abducted children nationwide since 1997 - will need when it is installed in Indiana. Issue too many alerts across radio, TV and the Internet, and the public is numbed. Put out the word too late, and the chances of recovering the child diminishes. Clear and rehearsed guidelines for police and broadcasters will be essential.

In Nicolas Zavala's case, there still appears to be more unknown than known. Parents reading each strange twist in his story probably were wondering: Would the investigation into his disappearance have been more successful if it had been put before public eyes before two months had passed?