Showing posts with label missing person. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missing person. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Kaine Horman Files for Divorce
Kaine Horman has filed for divorce from his wife, Terri, moved out of the house with the couple's toddler daughter, and obtained a restraining order against Terri Horman. Kaine is the father of Kyron Horman, the second grader who disappeared from his elementary school in Portland, Oregon on June 4. Terri was the last person to see him, walking away from her towards his classroom that morning. She has been the focus of intense speculation in the blogosphere after reports that her cell phone records do not match her account of where she was that day.
If you Google this case, you can find numerous blog posts speculating on why the Hormans are splitting up. Just about everyone with an Internet connection seems to have an opinion, and most of them believe that Kaine knows something about Terri's role in Kyron's disappearance. Terri was already an Internet villain, and became one early in the case after she posted to her Facebook page that she was "hitting the gym" in the days following Kyron's disappearance.
For the record, I have absolutely no idea whether Terri Horman knows anything the general public doesn't about Kyron's disappearance. I watch the same cop shows on TV that everyone else does, and I know that when a child disappears there's a good chance someone close to them is involved. If this were a Law & Order
episode, my money would be on the stepmother. But it's not a Law & Order episode, and all I can assume from Kaine Horman filing for divorce is that the Hormans don't have a particularly happy marriage, at least not right now.Putting to the side the question of whether Terri Horman is involved in Kyron's disappearance, the Horman's marriage breaking up shines a spotlight on a real issue for families that are experiencing or have experienced traumatic stress. There is a popular notion that crises bring families closer together. In fact, the stress of crises put tremendous stress on family relationships. Marital trouble following a traumatic event is quite common, and the fact that most people think otherwise only serves to make people feel guilty about the troubles they are having.
At the end of every single Critical Incident Stress Management intervention, there is some form of education provided about typical reactions to stress and what people can do to mitigate their reactions. One of the standard things we tell people is not to make any major, life-changing decisions while they are in the acute aftermath of an event. It's not at all uncommon for people to say, at moments like this, that they are going to quit their job or move or leave their spouse. We caution them not to do anything they can't undo, because they may feel differently when the dust settles.
With that advice in mind, I cringed a little when I saw that Kaine Horman had filed for divorce. It is possible that the Hormans were having difficulties long before this, of course. It is also possible that Kaine knows something we don't know about Terri and Kyron. My worry is that neither of those things is true, but the last three weeks have been incredibly difficult and, in a situation that feels out of control, Kaine Horman is exerting control over one thing he can -- his marriage. If so, I hope he'll hold off a little longer, until they find Kyron or until the main investigation goes cold. There's no sense in doing something he can't undo.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Once Teen Sailor Abby Sunderland is Rescued, Who Will Need Intervention?
Abby Sunderland, 16, has been found safe, floating on her de-masted boat in the Indian Ocean. Abby's parents had lost contact with her early Thursday morning Pacific Time as she sailed through gusty winds and high waves on her quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo
. Shortly after her communications went out, she activated two emergency beacons on her boat, indicating that something else was wrong. A Quantas airliner spotted her about 20 hours later with the mast of her boat gone. She appears to be unharmed, and a fishing boat is headed to pick her up.When this is all over, who in this story do you imagine might show some post-traumatic stress symptoms? Whose coping mechanisms may have been overwhelmed during these 20 hours of uncertainty?
I'd like to suggest that it isn't Abby Sunderland. During the 20 hours after her mast snapped, Abby Sunderland knew, the entire time, that she was OK. She was disappointed, certainly, that her sailing journey was over. She was worried, I'd guess, about the storms and about how soon help would arrive. This was close to the worst for which she was prepared, but Abby Sunderland was prepared for this, and she was OK.
The same cannot necessarily be said for her parents. During those 20 hours, unlike Abby, her parents did not know if she was OK. In many cases, uncertainty is much more difficult to deal with than the facts, even when the facts are horrible. When people don't know what has happened or what will happen, they think through all of the possibilities.
In this case, Abby's parents probably imagined she was dead, she was alive and floating in the ocean, she was seriously injured, and maybe 100 other possible scenarios including the one that turned out to be true. While they were imagining all of those things, not knowing which, if any, had happened, their minds had to try to cope with all of them at once. That's an awful lot to process, and might easily overwhelm your coping skills. It's actually harder than knowing that, say, she actually is seriously injured. If she were seriously injured and they knew that, they would have to deal with it. When they imagine that she's injured but also imagine that she's dead, or freezing, or drowning, the have to deal with all of those things, not just the one.
I am reminded of a story my father used to tell about getting separated from his grandmother in Central Park when he was a boy. When she found him, she referred to him as having been "lost." He adamantly insisted that he had not been lost -- he knew where he was the whole time. He was sure it was his grandmother who had been lost.
Abby Sunderland is most likely not traumatized because she knew she was OK. I don't know the Sunderland family or how they coped with all of this. I would certainly want to assess that before deciding they need help. They are, however, much more at risk than Abby. After all, Abby knew exactly where she was the whole time.
image: LA Times
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Kyron Horman and the Urge to Do Something
Kyron Horman is still missing, more than 5 days after he was last seen at his Portland, Oregon elementary school. There are twice-daily briefings from the sheriff's department about his case, but they don't seem to contain much information. The family issued a statement today asking everyone to keep looking. The search has not been classified as a criminal investigation, and is still largely confined to the local Portland area despite tips coming in from Washington State.
In the absence of any hard information, the media, of course, is making up their own. It seems like every media outlet has a former FBI profiler or an expert in missing child cases explaining what the police really mean when they say nothing. Interestingly, not one of these people seems to think the police don't have any idea what happened to this child, and none of them seem to think this is not a criminal investigation. Apparently, there are clues to the Sheriff's thinking all over the place if you know where to find them -- or imagine them.
One interesting phenomenon of this story has to do with the search. Police have asked that people not just show up to help look for Kyron, but rather leave that to the folks who are trained in search and rescue. Apparently, people are showing up anyway. Today, police took a different tack and asked for donations of food and water for the search and rescue teams. Searchers are coming from all over Oregon, and they are going to need to be fed. The press in Portland is now announcing drop off centers where such donations can be left.
So, now is when, in the absence of any hard information, I'm going to make up my own. In my experience and training, it would be fairly unusual for the authorities to need donations from the public for food and water for the rescue teams. These sorts of needs are often either covered by donated supplies and services from local restaurants or supplied by the Red Cross, or both. In a truly huge operation, you can imagine the need outstripping the established methods of getting volunteers fed, but it would need to be truly huge, on the scale of 9-11 (and even there, companies donated tons of food). So why are the authorities asking the public for this?
My guess, and it is just a guess, is that they are trying to channel the energies of people who want to help. They don't want people showing up to search, because they aren't properly trained and they may well hinder the operation more than they will help it. But people don't like to be told to go away at moments like this. When they are turned away, people tend to interpret this as meaning that the authorities are not doing everything they can, or they simply ignore the instructions and go searching anyway. People who are scared do not like to do nothing, and helping makes them feel more in control. This is a natural, understandable reaction, but it needs to be sent in a useful direction so as not to sabotage the very operation people are trying to help. Asking people to bring food and water for the searchers gives them something to do that is arguably necessary that will not get in the way. The helpers feel like they're helping, the searchers get food and water, and those with the proper training carry out the search. Everybody wins.
If there's one thing I know about myself, it is that I am very prone to the need to do something when things go wrong. That is almost certainly a big piece of why I do crisis response work in the first place. That's not a bad motivation, and the outcome can be helpful. It's just a question of sending me off in the right direction, so I don't get in the way.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Kyron Horman's Disappearance is a Nightmare for Everyone
On Friday morning, 7-year-old Kyron Horman attended his school science fair in Portland, Oregon with his step-mother. At 8:45 AM, he walked down the hall at Skyline Elementary School, towards his 2nd grade classroom. He has not been seen since. Just before 4 PM, when Kyron didn't get off the bus at home, his step-mother called the school and learned he had never been in class.
The disappearance of a child is every parent's nightmare. Most of us know that instinctively. This particular scenario, however, is also every school's nightmare. A child makes it to school and the school loses track of them, and they're gone. I wish I could say that I can't imagine how this could happen, and certainly it isn't easy, but honestly, this could have happened at any school I've ever worked in.
Most schools have a system that works something like this: when the bell rings, the teacher takes attendance. That is conveyed -- either by a child messenger or by computer -- to the office. Someone in the office, meanwhile, is taking phone calls from parents calling to say their child is sick and matching these with reported absences, also taking into consideration any children who come in late. Then the office, or an automated system, calls the homes of children who are not accounted for. Ideally, this should be done by the time an hour or so has passed.
There are plenty of places for this system to go wrong. The teacher accidentally marks the wrong child absent. She marks "excused absence" instead of an unexcused one, perhaps because a friend says he's sick, so the computer records that the parent has called the child off. There is a sub who doesn't know how to properly mark the sheet, so the office misreads the attendance sheet. There is a sub in the office who doesn't fully understand the system, or doesn't make phone calls at all. Someone with a similar name signs in late, and the wrong child is marked tardy. Some emergency takes attention away from attendance in the office, or a single phone call doesn't get made.
Now a child is missing
, and it isn't hard to point fingers at the school, rightly or wrongly. This is one of those times when the need for peers in early crisis response is especially clear. The school staff are feeling terribly guilty, and they need to be able to talk to someone who understands how this could happen. The Principal needs a Principal who gets that sometimes attendance isn't done properly. The secretary needs a secretary who knows how hard it is to keep track of everyone. The teacher needs another teacher. And all of them need school staff who know how very responsible all of us in schools feel when something goes wrong on "our watch," and how much harder it is when you're being blamed from the outside as well as yourself.As much as I know this could have happened in my school, or any school, I will also admit to some healthy skepticism. The chances of the system failing for any individual child are pretty small. The chances of it failing for the one child who happens to be missing are infinitesimal. Something else happened here. Maybe the school knows what it was, maybe they don't. But even if they know what it is, even if they know it wasn't their fault, they're still going to feel guilty, and they're still going to get blamed. Let's hope that somehow, Kyron gets home safe soon, and both the parents and the school can wake up from this nightmare.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine
At least seven coal miners are dead and nineteen more are missing in Montcoal, West Virginia tonight after an explosion tore through the mine at about 3 o'clock this afternoon. The governor of West Virginia is out of the state but is returning. The congressman from that part of the state is on the scene. President Obama has made a statement offering his support. It is not clear from media reports whether it is believed that the missing miners could have survived the blast.
Coal mining is hard, dangerous work. Those of us with a mild phobia about, say, tunnels, can tell you that the idea of being deep underground in one and chipping at the walls does not seem like a safe thing to do. Seventy years ago, a thousand miners might have died in a given year in the United States. Last year there were just 35 mining deaths.
In other parts of the world, safety standards may not be as stringent, and the result is more accidents and more fatalities. Just last week an unfinished mine in Xiangning, China flooded, trapping 153 miners. Yesterday, 115 were rescued after surviving for a week eating bark and glucose packets dropped through a pipe into the mine. They are the lucky ones -- 2,631 miners died in China last year. There are, of course, more miners in China than in the U.S., but the death rate per 100 miners is still about 50% higher in China.
Everyone who lives in a community surrounding a mine knows that something like the explosion today could happen at any time. You might wonder, then, why people keep going down into the mines or letting their loved ones become miners. It truly isn't that difficult to understand, however, when you put it in some context. The death rate in U.S. mines is about 1 per 666.7 million hours worked.
The name "Montcoal" probably gives some insight into the role that mining plays in that portion of West Virginia. In mining communities, the mines are very often the largest employer by far. Sons follow their fathers and grandfathers into the mines, and kids plan on becoming a miner when they finish school. Mining is steady work in those communities that have coal veins below them, and steady work is often hard to come by outside the mines and the businesses that support the mining operations.
All of that is little comfort to the people of Montcoal tonight. Their family members are missing, and it doesn't much matter if they were paid well or if the chances of something happening to them personally were tiny. Tonight it feels like 100%. It is unfortunate that there are probably very skilled crisis teams ready to assist Montclair -- unfortunate because that means this sort of thing has happened before, and people have learned from that experience. Until those 19 miners are accounted for, however, all anyone can do is wait.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The End of the Search for Chelsea King
Chelsea King will not be coming home from the jog she went on after school last Thursday. Her body was found today in a shallow grave in Rancho Bernardo Community Park in San Diego where she went for her run. A registered sex offender is under arrest, charged with her murder and linked to an assault on another jogger in the same park in December.
When things like this happen, you often hear people remark, "I just can't imagine what her parents must be going through." This is undoubtedly the case. Unless you've experienced something similar, it is unlikely that anything in your life is even vaguely related to the emotions that this family is experiencing right now. When we try to imagine what it would be like, we put ourselves directly into the worst of it -- knowing that your daughter has been raped and murdered. But of course the family does not receive the news this way, and that is part of why we really can't imagine what it's like.
When Chelsea was later than usual coming home from her run, I imagine there was some stretch of time when no one noticed. A minute or two late wouldn't get anyone's attention. As time went on, and her family noticed she was late, the decision that something might be wrong probably came on gradually. After all, if three minutes late isn't a big deal, is four? What about five? When do you decide it's a big deal? Not worrying turns to worrying slowly, and there is an in-between time when folks are both worried and telling themselves they shouldn't be.
This same pattern repeats itself over and over. There's worrying while knowing it's most likely she's fine, followed by knowing that she probably isn't fine (and the in-between time in the middle of those). The hope that she's just injured somewhere fades into the fear that she's not, which fades into the knowledge that there's been an arrest but she might be alive, which fades into the realization that she probably isn't, which fades into the certainty.
One of the most common things people say after the traumatic death of a loved one is, "this doesn't feel real" or "this can't be true." Part of this is because the sudden death of someone we care about is not on our mental menu for things that can happen on a normal day, so it seems like it can't possibly happen. The other part, however, is that, at least in situations like this one, there have been so many transitions in the understanding of what is going on. It's hardly surprising that, when it's over, it still feels like it's in that in-between place.
Chelsea King is not coming home. Her parents know that now. One can hardly blame them, however, if they have fleeting moments when their minds refuse to accept delivery on that particularly gruesome message.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
VA Tech Student's Body Found, and It's a Whole New Ballgame
A body which appears to be that of Morgan Harrington, a 20 year-old student at Virginia Tech, was found today, more than three months after and a few miles away from where she was last seen after a concert in Charlottesville, Virginia. She disappeared on October 17 and was last seen walking alone down a nearby road. Human remains were found today on a farm southwest of Charlottesville, and investigators are pretty sure they are hers.
Two weeks ago, her mother wrote in her blog:
I pray that the truth of this crime shows itself while Morgan is still alive. I have no interest in recovering a body. I would rather not know and always have some morsel of hope.The discovery today is a direct blow to what her mother wanted and must have known might happen. At the same time, I'm not sure any of us can really know what outcome, other than finding her alive, would be better unless we've lived it.
Whether or not finding Morgan's body is better or worse for her family, it certainly does represent a new chapter in their efforts to deal with her disappearance. Having a family member disappear is an ongoing event. Whatever peace you make with what has happened comes slowly. It is traumatic and awful, but it is not final.
Now that her body has been found, however, Morgan's family will have to take everything they've come to understand and deal with about what might have happened to her and combine it with the new knowledge that she is never coming home. That inevitably will bring with it new questions, doubts and fears, and with them will come new post-traumatic symptoms (or recurrence of the old ones). Effectively, this is a new trauma.
At some point investigators may figure out what happened to Morgan Harrington. If and when that happens, it will represent yet another new chapter in her family's recovery. The new information will need to be processed and dealt with and understood, and the images and thoughts associated with it will be intrusive for a while. The arrest and trial of a suspect may bring new feelings once again.
So, in that sense, maybe Morgan's mother was right. Maybe it would be better not to know, because at least that was a steady, unchanging fact even if it left a lot of uncertainty. Now that certainty is here, on the other hand, the next phase of healing can begin.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Missing Utah Mom: All Women are Equal, But Some are More Equal than Others
Susan Powell, a 28-year-old mom in West Valley City, Utah, didn't turn up for work on Monday, and neither did her husband. By midday, her sister had called police and they had found that the whole family was gone, but Susan's keys, cell phone and car were still at her home. Around 5 o'clock, her husband turned up with the kids, ages 2 and 4, and said that he had been camping. He told police that he had last seen his wife about 12:30 that morning, as she was going to bed. He had then bundled his kids up in the middle of the night and taken them camping in temperatures below 20 degrees and forgotten that it was Monday, not Sunday.
Susan Powell is still missing, and her disappearance is being classified as "suspicious" by law enforcement. They aren't naming names, but I don't think you have to have a degree in criminal justice to figure out that her husband is a major suspect. Either he is very odd and innocent, or he is guilty and a very bad liar. Time will tell.
This story is all over the news today, four days after Susan Powell went missing. I do not begrudge her the media attention, and I hope it helps to find her. But I can't help but contrast this situation to the case of the 11 dead women who were found at a single house in Cleveland, Ohio. In that instance, some of them were gone for months before anyone reported them missing, and some were never reported at all. Certainly none of them got the kind of media coverage that Susan Powell is getting.
There are some practical reasons for the difference. Obviously the media will not cover the disappearance of someone who has not been reported missing. The victims in the Cleveland case were very disproportionately transient, homeless, or prostitutes -- the people who are poorly connected to the rest of society and, frankly, that society doesn't worry too much about. That makes reporting of their disappearance less likely.
Let's face it, though. Part of the reason Susan Powell is getting much more coverage than the Cleveland victims all did combined is that she is a white, middle class, young mother. She is the stuff crime shows are made of. The victims in Cleveland are the people who we accept, as a society, will go missing -- African-American women engaged in drugs or prostitution or living on the street. We don't worry about them when they're there, and we don't worry about them when they disappear.
We like to pretend that every human life is precious to us in this country. These two cases point out that that really isn't true. We'll prosecute the killers of anyone, yes. But there are some women on the fringes of society that we won't work too hard to protect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
Subscribe
Posts
All Comments