Marlaina Reed - Jane Doe No Longer

Marlaina "Nikki" Reed wasn't finished being a child. Marlaina was beaten to death – stuffed into a cardboard box and discarded with the trash in a north side Chicago alley. She was located on January 21, 2007 and had been deceased for several days. She was 17 years old.

The last missing person report for Marlaina said she was missing since May 5, 2006. It wasn't unusual – Marlaina ran away often – at least since she was 14. Marlaina was a ward of the state of Illinois, living in a group home on the city's north side. She was listed on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website as a missing child until the following year, May 2007. Just after her 18th birthday, she was removed from the site. Released from the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois when she reached 18, she was also removed from LEADS and NCIC by the Chicago police department. Perhaps this is department policy, perhaps it was an error, or perhaps it is an inherent flaw in a system that must protect the privacy of adults as well as the lives of children. Whatever the reason, Marlaina not only vanished in life, she vanished from the rolls of the missing and endangered. NCMEC, following federal privacy law guidelines, had to remove her case file when she was removed from NCIC. In fact, by the time her case files were purged from the databases, Marlaina had been lying in the Cook County Medical Examiner's office for 4 months, an unidentified Jane Doe.

God Bless the investigators with the Chicago Police Department who made the extraordinary effort to identify her. For the first time since 1980, the Cook County Medical Examiner's turned to forensic reconstruction to put a face to the young woman whose own face was disfigured by the beating she sustained, as well as decomposition. Forensic artist Karen Taylor did a remarkable job. That face was combined with the knowledge that the teen had once worn braces and sent to an Illinois Dental magazine, where, she was recognized by a Doctor and his nurse. Jane Doe now had a name and Marlaina was no longer missing.

Had Marlaina remained in NCIC and LEADS, perhaps closure to this case would have come sooner – perhaps not. But the fact that juveniles are considered 'missing' one day before they are 18 and no longer missing one day later is a huge crack in the system that is striving every day to bring investigative techniques and cutting edge technology into play to identify the thousands of unidentified John and Jane Does nationwide. Marlaina wasn't on anyone's radar. Even though she remained missing on my own site – I never made the connection to the Jane Doe – I didn't see the forest for the trees.

I am told that there is legislation on the books of several states that mandate that missing juveniles that turn 18 be transitioned to another database – as missing emancipated juveniles or missing adults. Missing children and missing adults are a nationwide problem. It is imperative that we centralize the data so that the missing and the unidentified can be compared on a national basis. We need federal legislation that mandates that these cases be carried over once a child attains the age of 18. I urge you to help me do this. Marlaina's life and death deserve more.

For The Families of the Missing - My New Year's Prayer

A year ago I lost my best friend. His death was unexpected and it was sudden. I wasn't prepared nor was his family. I didn't personally know his wife or his daughters or his brothers or sister. At least we'd never met. But I knew them through his words, his stories and his love for them. He was a "stand up" guy, honest, forthright, tough and sensitive. And he could make me laugh - not an easy task. Oh, did I mention he was stubborn? He wasn't perfect and there were times when I shook my head in dismay at his antics, but his heart was always good. He made me laugh, he made me cry, he made me a better person for having known him. And when he died, too young and too soon, his family grieved together. I grieved alone...finding out too late about his death which came as Christmas weekend was upon us.

A year later - I find myself grieving still. Less often, perhaps, but with a pain just as intense when it strikes, and I am forever mindful that I never told him things I should have said: that he was my rock, my supporter, and my best friend. Or at least I never told him often enough. Besides, he was way too busy trying to fix all the things that were broken in me to worry about being appreciated for his efforts - although I truly believe I was a challenge that he actually enjoyed. At least I hope so. I know I wasn't the easiest person to have for a friend.

His death left a huge unfillable void in my heart and in my soul. My life has been forever changed.

I went to the cemetery once - a few days after his death. The grave site was piled high with flowers from his family and his friends. Beloved husband and father, loving brother and uncle. He was all of those and more. He was a beloved friend. I alternately screamed and cried, and ultimately laughed when I thought of what he would say to me if he could only do so. I had the cemetery to myself that day, thankfully.

I haven't gone back because I don't really believe he's there. He's in the hearts of his family, watching over them with love and perhaps a little consternation when someone is doing something that he might have 'suggested' be done differently.

So in the whole grand scheme of this awful grief I've felt this Christmas - on the first anniversary of his death - I found myself wishing I could somehow erase this same pain that I know the family members of our missing persons must feel every day that their loved one is gone. My friends death was sudden; bringing the raw, indescribable and undeniable pain that follows the death of someone you care about. It wasn't tangible, but it was real and it was final and it was over. But for the families of the missing - it's worse. They alternate between deep despair and sorrow yet clinging to unfulfilled hope...and they pray, but as every day passes, the wait gets harder and hope becomes a little more distant. It is for them, at the beginning of this New Year, that I pray that their wait will be over soon....that their loved ones will return or be returned into their loving arms.