March 28, 2024, 11:05:36 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: NEW CHILD BOARD CREATED IN THE POLITICAL SECTION FOR THE 2016 ELECTION
 
   Home   Help Login Register  
Pages: 1   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: THE UNFORGOTTEN-NY Loved ones keep missing-person cases alive  (Read 5098 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Nut44x4
Maine - USA
Global Moderator
Monkey Mega Star
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 18800


RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« on: February 11, 2008, 03:33:03 PM »

The Unforgotten ---
Loved ones keep missing-person cases alive 

 http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=662623&category=REGION&newsdate=2/10/2008

First published: Sunday, February 10, 2008
 
In the last 10 years much has changed in the way we remember missing persons. They get their own Web sites now, fundraisers are held for reward money, and more media attention is devoted to the cases. But one thing hasn't changed -- they're still missing.
Highlighted here are a dozen local people, young and old, male and female, who went missing, some as long ago as nearly 30 years, some as recently as two months.

The missing will never be far from the minds of their friends and families -- or the minds of investigators who have spent careers trying to figure out what happened the day the person vanished.

"Many of these cases are those types that are still being worked on even though they are not actively in the public light," State Police Senior Investigator David Madden said.

Investigators keep case files of missing persons on their desks "to remind them," said Madden, who heads the Major Crimes Unit at Troop G, Loudonville. "They are at arm's reach in order to pull another file for review or to re-interview, to take a second look to see if they missed something the first time. So, if a new lead should appear, they are ready to go and there is no lag time trying to get caught up."

Often, weeks or months later, as leads dry up, police begin treating the case as a homicide, although the family holds out hope that one day the door will open and their missing loved one will walk in.

"You can almost categorize them as part of major case investigations and homicide/missing people fit that category," Madden said.

Families often find ways to keep their missing loved one in the spotlight, as well as help families of other missing people. Doug and Mary Lyall, whose daughter, Suzanne Lyall went missing from the University at Albany campus nearly 10 years ago, started the Ballston-Spa-based Center For Hope, dedicated to the missing and their families.

Missing people never age. In many cases, police ask forensic artists to make sketches of what the person would look like today -- say 10, 15 years later. But to their loved ones they will always look the way they did on the day they vanished.

Carol DeMare can be reached at 454-5431 or by e-mail at cdemare@timesunion.com.

Unsolved Cases

More who vanished in region:

Frank Connell: 47, Rensselaer, last seen April 20, 2007

Shelton "Shawn" Grant: 22, Troy, last seen Nov. 30, 2007

Audrey May Herron: 31, Greene County, last seen Aug. 29, 2002

George LaForest: 45, Stillwater, last seen April 2006

Monique "Pebbles" Santiago: 11, Albany, last seen March 29, 1990

Jeanne Marie Scrima: 44, Knox, last seen March 19, 1980

To view past articles on missing people and other special features, go to: http://timesunion.com/specialreports/ missingpersons/
Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear  -- Rudyard Kipling

One who doesn't trust is never deceived...

'I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind' -Edgar Allen Poe
bleachedblack
Monkey All Star Jr.
****
Offline Offline

Posts: 7607



« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2008, 12:58:27 PM »

Family members hold out hope for missing loved ones

 April 7, 2008
ALBANY — More than one person in the crowd of about 150 held a box of Kleenex on their lap, dabbing at their eyes while listening to presentations in the Huxley Theater at the New York State Museum Sunday.

Outside in the lobby, while small children held their parents’ hands and shrieked over the museum displays of planets, fish and birds, card tables bearing T-shirts, buttons, brochures and wedding photos stood as silent testament to New Yorkers gone missing.

“Our Mommy is Still Missing,” was screen- printed on one shirt, accompanied by hand-scrawled letters from the children of Audrey May Herron of Catskill, missing since Aug. 29, 2002. “Where is George LaForest?” was emblazoned on dozens of posters at a nearby table, looking for any clues to the disappearance of LaForest, who vanished April 21, 2006, in Indian Lake. Many of the tables displayed Web site addresses for more information, most starting with the letters www.find . . . .

There was also a booth for parents to have child identification cards made for young ones, who inked their thumbprints and smiled for the camera without any notion of the serious nature of the photo cards.

Kim Huskie of East Greenbush had cards made for her son, Jacob Evans, 5, and daughter Sierra Huskie, 15.

“I feel better having this information on record,” Kim Huskie said. “It’s heartbreaking to think about. When I was little, we went anywhere; we walked to school and to the park, we didn’t give it a second thought. We live in different times today.”

The annual New York State Missing Persons Day is held every year on April 6, coinciding with the birth date of Suzanne Lyall, who disappeared 10 years ago while a student at the University at Albany.

The daughter of Doug and Mary Lyall of Ballston Spa, Suzanne’s parents established the Center for HOPE (Healing Our Painful Emotions) eight years ago in their living room.

Since then, they’ve been the guiding force behind generating more avenues for getting the names and faces of missing people out in the public eye, pushing for tougher legislation, particularly around school campuses, and bringing families and friends together for comfort.

“There is tremendous strength and support we gain just from being in the same shoes,” Doug Lyall said. “There’s a uniqueness of this ambiguous loss we are faced with; we can describe it to others but not make them understand.”

According to the New York Sheriff’s Association, there are 3,500 missing persons in New York state, with 1,400 over the age of 18. U.S. Rep. Kristen Gillibrand told the audience she willl continue working to promote safety measures for older students.

“We have many laws protecting children, but on any given day there are thousands of adults missing, and many are college-age women,” said Gillibrand. “People need to know it happens on college campuses frequently. I thank the Lyalls from the bottom of my heart for working to educate people. Most families never get beyond the kind of tragedy they’ve seen.”

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/apr/07/0407_/
Logged

".......O you who love clear edges
more than anything ......    watch the edges that blur"
GramaMonkey
Monkey Junky
***
Offline Offline

Posts: 3282



« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2009, 08:11:14 PM »

Here is a link:  There are several articles on Suzanne Lyall

http://www.crimeandjustice.us/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t7007.html


http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?ne...=7021&rfi=6

Lyall's parents applaud Campus Safety Act

By: Paul Post, Special to The Record
08/16/2008

BALLSTON SPA - The parents of long-missing Suzanne Lyall on Friday praised President Bush's signing of a bill named after their daughter that mandates prompter response to college campus crimes.

The Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act mandates colleges and law enforcement agencies develop procedures for investigating violent crimes on campuses.

Suzanne, the daughter of Douglas and Mary Lyall, was a sophomore at the state University at Albany when she went missing on March 2, 1998. She hasn't been heard from since.

"It means that families won't have to go through what we went through," Mary Lyall said of the bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Hudson. "We waited for three days before the campus did anything about her disappearance. It requires campus police to have some kind of plan in place to find missing people and to help victims of violent crime."

The legislation is patterned after a 1999 state Campus Safety Bill.

"Kirsten Gillibrand was the driving force behind it," Lyall said. "We discussed it with her office about a year ago, and she's been working on it ever since. She really took the ball and ran with it."

Gillibrand said the bill is intended to minimize confusion and delays during the initial investigation of a violent felony.
Skidmore College safety official Larry Britt said the school already has missing person protocols and procedures in place and that city police are notified within two hours if a subject isn't located.

Last April, the Lyalls were disappointed by President Bush's refusal to sign legislation to make April 6, Suzanne's birthday, a national Missing Persons Day, which has already been established in New York. The measure passed the House and Senate, but the president said the date conflicted with another crime victims' observance.

On Tuesday, the Lyalls will be featured on a CNN newscast about their missing persons playing card program. The segment is tentatively scheduled to appear between 7 and 8 .m.

Playing cards depicting missing persons and violent crime victims have been distributed to county jails throughout New York, where they're given to inmates with hopes that they might identify someone.

It's one of many projects the Lyalls are involved with in their ongoing plight to learn about their daughter's disappearance and help families in similar situations.

"Every time we do something her name gets back out in the news," Lyall said. "That's important because people have a tendency to forget and get on with their lives."

At the state level, the couple has been trying to get legislation passed that would create assault and abduction-free school zones. The intent, from grade schools to colleges, would be to impose tougher penalties for crimes committed in school settings.

The bill has passed the state Senate, but not the Assembly. A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, could not immediately be reached for comment.

For information on missing persons programs see the Web site: www.hope4missing.org.
Posting GoddessAug 19 2008, 09:04 AM
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/aug/19/0819_lyalls/

Local couple’s advocacy is rewarded
New law aimed at response to missing college students

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
By Lee Coleman (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SARATOGA COUNTY — A new federal law providing faster and better coordinated police response when a college-aged student is reported missing carries the name of a young Saratoga County woman who went missing 10 years ago.

President George W. Bush signed the Higher Education Opportunity Act late last week. The law includes the “Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act.”

“I’m so gratified and so pleased,” said U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Greenport, of the legislation she introduced and successfully moved through Congress.

“It’s been 10 years since her disappearance,” Gillibrand noted.

Suzanne Lyall, then 19, was a student at the University at Albany on March 2, 1998. She was last seen at the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland where she worked.

Douglas and Mary Lyall of Milton, Suzanne’s parents, said campus police were first to respond to the missing person case, then the Guilderland Police Department became involved and later Albany city police and the Albany County Sheriff’s Department. The state police finally took over the case.

The investigation was confusing and time consuming, the Lyalls have said, as they encouraged state and federal lawmakers to pass legislation to provide faster and better coordinated police response to abductions and missing persons cases.

“We can never, with 100 percent surety, guarantee the safety of every student on every campus,” the Lyalls said in a joint statement.

“But we can guarantee to do everything in our power to have laws and procedures in place to protect our students as much as possible,” the Lyalls said.

“Congresswoman Gillibrand’s amendment will help protect more students on college campuses,” the Lyalls said.

Gillibrand said Monday, “This is something the Lyalls had a passion about.” She said Suzanne’s parents took a tragedy, and through their long and effective advocacy for better response to such crimes, have turned the tragedy into something positive.

“This is something that will really make a difference,” Gillibrand said in a telephone interview.

“The first 24 to 48 hours are the most important hours in solving abduction cases before the victim is killed,” Gillibrand said.

The Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act requires all colleges and universities to have a clear policy outlining the role and responsibilities for campus, local and state police if a violent crime, such as an abduction, occurs on campus.

The Lyall amendment is intended to minimize confusion and delays during the initial investigation of a violent felony, according to Gillibrand.

Then-Gov. George Pataki signed a similar state campus safety act into law in 1999.

Gillibrand said it is “quite special” to have a person’s name attached to a piece of federal legislation, such as the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act.

She said she has seen only a handful of such personalized bills adopted during her tenure in Washington representing the 20th Congressional District.

“It is unusual,” she said.

“These provisions will protect more college students from serious danger, which is perhaps the best way that we can honor Suzanne’s life,” Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand, who is serving her first term in Congress, said she was also pleased that this was the first bill she has sponsored that has been signed into law in its entirety.

“It’s all due to the Lyalls’ advocacy,” she said.

The amendment was to the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, legislation that reauthorizes the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which outlines the federal government’s funding commitment for postsecondary institutions.

Gillbrand said that children are protected by the federal Amber Alert legislation in cases of abduction. With the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act, college-aged students will have a similar protection in cases of abduction, she said.

Logged

Pages: 1   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Use of this web site in any manner signifies unconditional acceptance, without exception, of our terms of use.
Powered by SMF 1.1.13 | SMF © 2006-2011, Simple Machines LLC
 
Page created in 6.14 seconds with 20 queries.