Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 8, 1991 TAG: 9104080316
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
A case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Pickett often is assigned cases where the child was abducted by a stranger.
"You do get emotionally involved," he said. "You have to love helping people."
Pickett, 47, lives in Spotsylvania County and commutes to Arlington, where the center has its offices. His file cabinet is stuffed with the histories of more than 4,000 missing children. Some are runaways; some were taken by family members; the rest were kidnapped by strangers.
"A high percentage of those won't be happy endings," he said.
A sampling of some of the Virginia cases he has been consulted on:
The disappearance of Melissa Brannen, a 5-year-old whose body has not been found, although the groundskeeper at her apartment complex in Lorton recently was convicted of abduction with intent to defile.
The case of Alexander Sztanko, a 15-year-old boy who was robbed, tortured and killed in Prince William County. Michael Carl George of Stafford County was convicted of capital murder.
The death of Travis Soper, a 2-year-old boy who wandered away from his trailer park in Prince William. Authorities say he was lost and died of exposure.
The stories arrive on Pickett's desk from police, social workers, the media or the families of the missing children. Pickett calls both the family and police, although he said some officers bristle at what they see as interference.
"It takes some skill to wade into a police department and dare to say how the business of finding a child needs to be run," said Pickett, a former state trooper.
The national center was founded by Congress in 1984 and receives most of its funding through the U.S. Justice Department, said spokeswoman Julia Cartwright. The center stores information on missing children, provides assistance to citizens and police and offers training programs to law enforcement agencies.
One of its most important resources is a donated computer that can enhance photographs to show what a missing child might look like after months or even years. Staffers receive about 190 calls daily on the center's hotline, (800) 843-5678.
The center has attracted considerable attention. Wayne Newton, for instance, is on the board of directors,and some proceeds from his recent concert at George Mason University's Patriot Center will go to the organization. Actress Jodie Foster has done public service announcements for the center. Some of its cases have been profiled on television's "Unsolved Mysteries."
Pickett has been working at the center since it opened and has seen the horrible and the wonderful.
Last Labor Day weekend he was asked to go to the Detroit area, where a 12-year-old boy had been abducted. A motorist had called police after seeing the boy struggling with a man in a car on the highway.
"The cops put everyone on that case, in all the positive ways," Pickett said. "Pictures of the boy were on all the television stations and in the newspapers." With help from a witness who spotted the pair, police found the boy's remains. When the man was arrested, he admitted accidentally choking the boy with a belt while sodomizing him.
Sometimes there's a happy ending, as in the case of a 4-year-old girl who was seen climbing into a truck with a woman in Arizona.
The story was highly publicized. Several weeks later, a social worker was getting ready to go to her job when the little girl showed up near her door. The woman recognized the child.
The suspect has never been found.
Pickett said the hardest part of his job is trying to calm distraught families.
by CNB