Fiction Filter: missing person report on someone who chose to leave?

February 2, 2016 10:22 AM

Woman disappears: packs up her things, including all ID, and leaves without any indication of where she has gone. Adult daughter wants to file Missing Person's report, her father says it is pointless because woman clearly left of her own free will. What, in reality, would happen if the daughter tries to get the police involved? How can I find out more about police procedure in such cases?

When she phones the police station, do they give her a specific department number to call, or do they tell her to come in person? Will the police in fact get involved in any way when it is clear the disappearance is voluntary? This is in Ontario, if that is pertinent. It is for a novel, but not a thriller or policier. Please explain the steps to me, or tell me how I could get this information. Thanks.

posted by uans to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

Check your memail. (Sent you info about another user and I wasn't sure if that was okay to do in the main thread.)
posted by Beti at 10:41 AM on February 2, 2016

My sister works for a state police department and they had an episode recently where a woman with a known mental illness (think mania, not schizophrenia) went missing and there was definitely some "This was probably her own free will and yet at the same time people are concerned and would like her to get home safely" situation not entirely different from the manner you described. A LOT of this depends on how big/small the town is. This was in a small town in New England and so they put out a BOLO but the "case" was solved by someone who was in a store where the woman had purchased items. They couldn't "make" her come back since she was a grown woman but they could let her know her family was concerned about her. This was all dealt with by the police officer who was on duty when she was reported missing. Unless there is a mitigating circumstance (in this case, the woman's mental illness and the fact that this had happened before) many times police won't dig too deeply if there's not some sort of compelling reason to believe there is someone in some sort of danger or a crime has been committed.
posted by jessamyn at 11:26 AM on February 2, 2016

Best answer: As a person who has disappeared and been reported as a missing person, my experience in three different cities distributed over two different states is that as a courtesy the police will contact me to perform (what has been described to me as) a wellness check. I get asked a few conversational questions aimed at determining my capacity (e.g., You have been reported missing by W. Homever, can you explain your side of the situation to me?, Are you going to be alright on your own? &c). Once it's clear I'm not endangering myself and the situation isn't the result of mental illness, the police thank me for my time, make it clear that no missing persons case was opened in the first place and that this was just a courtesy, and on my request say that they will make a note to disregard further reports about me made by the same party.
posted by books for weapons at 12:02 PM on February 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think this is pretty fact specific. Sometimes disappearances like these are murders, and the police everywhere know that. If there are other indicators, like a jealous angry spouse, they will be interested to see if the person has fallen off all radar, including getting cash or using credit cards, because that is a big indicator of foul play. Sometimes the person who leaves has diagnosed or suspected mental illness, and then the police will often be quite concerned and take action. Sometimes it just seems someone wants to be elsewhere, and then the police probably won't be very interested in looking into it.

This happened with a member of my family who disappeared in the U.S. voluntarily, but so unexpectedly we thought it was foul play. The police were very responsive, but stopped looking into it actively (and we stopped worrying) when the trail of credit card activity made it pretty clear the family member was not under duress.

Why don't you see if you can book an informational meeting with someone on your local police force? They often have public information folks who can help with this, or you could do it via a contact who knows a police officer.
posted by bearwife at 12:51 PM on February 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

My 29-year-old brother disappeared in 1994. No signs of violence, no signs of moving on in life. Just a sort of gap in his presence after he made a trip up to Santa Fe from Albuquerque for unknown but not necessarily mysterious reasons.
The police did virtually nothing. He was an adult, they said, and could disappear if he wanted. Two weeks later his wallet was found. The police tossed it in their trunk from where they handed it over to my mother.
There was no evidence collecting and from our perspective, no concern. His bones were found six years later about three miles from where his wallet had been found. *Accident, suicide or murder, we don't know. The police to my knowledge, never followed up on the case.
*We speculated that maybe someone found his body and took the wallet after death.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:30 PM on February 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Canadian Information My personal experience in Ontario is that the Police will search for someone even if it is unlikely foul play is involved. In one case, I tried to call it off and the police officer said that they were required to follow through until they located the person.
posted by saucysault at 3:40 PM on February 2, 2016

Best answer: Oh, and as for the steps, I called 911, reported the non-urgent missing person, two officers came by for info and photos, they relayed info to local units, searched the house, gathered more info, went around driving looking for the person, returned to gather more info, continued searching and about seven hours later the missing person crept back in the house and was discovered so I called 911 to give the incident number and the same officers came to take the person in for evaluation at the hospital.
posted by saucysault at 3:44 PM on February 2, 2016

books for weapons, I've heard about "wellness checks" before, for checking on elderly relatives. Didn't know that it was a tool that could only be used once though!

As far as the procedure, OP, it might be different depending on the age of the person. If they were old enough that the police would suspect Alzheimer's or dementia might be a factor, in some areas this is treated differently.
posted by yohko at 9:22 PM on February 2, 2016

Response by poster: No, this would be a woman in her fifties with no diagnosed mental health issues. (Possibly she eve leaves a note saying something like 'please leave me alone'. ). In such cases would the police involve themselves?
posted by uans at 9:39 PM on February 2, 2016

Best answer: That depends, is this "out of character"? That is one of the phrases police look for, same as recent medical diagnosis. "Please leave me alone" Can be interpreted as sucidal. So it would be an interesting conversation between the daughter and the officer, building credibility and a convincing interpretation of the mother's actions as putting her life on danger.
posted by saucysault at 7:17 AM on February 3, 2016