Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
Shelia Diane Hughes
Hughes, date, approximate 2000; Renard Simmons
Date Missing 09/01/2000
Missing From
Aliceville, Alabama
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
Black
Date of Birth 06/17/1971 (51)
Age 29 years old
Height and Weight 5'5, 150 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A gray shirt, stretchy white maternity shorts and white house slippers.
Medical Conditions Hughes was nine months pregnant with a boy at the time of her September 2000 disappearance. She planned to name him Renard Simmons Jr. She was due to deliver her baby at any time.
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics African-American female. Black hair, brown eyes. Hughes has scars on her left arm and lower lip. Her ears are pierced. Her nickname is Boot.
Details of Disappearance Hughes left the Aliceville, Alabama residence she shared with her sister and nieces at approximately 10:30 p.m. on September 1, 2000. It was her baby's due date, but she wasn't showing any signs of going into labor yet.
Her boyfriend, Renard Simmons, the father of her unborn son, had stopped by to check on her and asked her to go for a ride with him. Hughes told her sister she was leaving with Simmons and didn't plan to be gone long, but added, "If you dont ever see me again, dont worry because I have lived my life to the fullest."
The police stopped Simmons's car at a roadblock in Pickensville, Alabama at 1:00 a.m. on September 2; Hughes was in the car at the time. This is the last time anyone saw her. Pickensville is about ten miles from Aliceville.
Simmons later told authorities that he dropped Hughes off at her home at approximately 3:00 a.m. on September 2. Her sister was home at the time and said Hughes never came back into the house. She has never been heard from again.
Hughes's brown purse and her white slippers were discovered under a tree in a cotton field in Noxubee County, Mississippi sometime after she was last seen. An extensive search of the area produced no clues as to her whereabouts. The items were located just west of the Alabama/Mississippi state line. Hughes's disappearance remains unsolved.
Hughes's family members stated Simmons was unhappy about her pregnancy. He wanted her to have an abortion and was angry at her refusal to do so, but Hughes still loved him, and planned to name their baby after him. After her disappearance, Simmons didn't seem very interested in finding her and didn't participate in any of the searches for her. A photo of him is posted with this summary.
Her family believes she is deceased, and authorities also think she met with foul play. She was declared ly dead in February 2008, seven and a half years after her disappearance. Simmons died in 2013. Hughes's remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
Aliceville Police Department
205-373-6631
Other
Alabama Department of Public Safety
Child Protection Education of America
NamUs
The Pickens County Herald
Texas Department of Public Safety
The Mobile Register
The Commercial Dispatch
NBC 13
The Tuscaloosa News
WCBI
Jenn Baxter
Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
