Girl's death focuses attention on effectiveness of the Amber Alert system

INDIANAPOLIS -- The death of a southern Indiana girl who vanished last week has again focused attention on the limits of the Amber Alert system designed to help police rescue abducted children before they are harmed.\nWhen Katlyn "Katie" Collman's body was found Sunday, it marked the first time since Indiana's Amber Alert system was started two years ago that the sought-after missing child was found dead.\nState police did not issue a statewide alert for Collman until two days after the 10-year-old Crothersville girl went missing. A state trooper found her body Sunday in a southern Indiana stream.\nPolice, who were awaiting autopsy results Monday, said there was not enough initial information pointing to an abduction to meet state guidelines for issuing an alert.\n"There was no information other than she was a missing child," Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin said.\nCollman's father called Crothersville police about 8:15 p.m. last Tuesday and said his daughter had not returned home four hours after leaving to buy toilet paper at a nearby store.\nState Police Maj. Dan Meek said local police called twice the next day to request an Amber Alert, but neither time did they have enough information for an alert.\nState law requires there to be enough information to make an alert useful, Meek said, and without a description of a suspect or suspect vehicle, police and citizens can only look for a child who may look like thousands of others.\nAn alert was issued Thursday after someone said they had seen the fourth-grader riding in a white pickup truck and provided a description of the driver and the vehicle.\nOn Monday, the day after their classmate's body was found, counselors met with Collman's classmates at the 280-student Crothersville Elementary School about 40 miles north of Louisville, Ky.\n"I think the No. 1 question was 'why did this happen' for the younger students," said Terry Goodin, superintendent of the Crothersville Community Schools.\nEarlier this winter, the parents of an Indianapolis girl found dead six days after she vanished questioned why authorities never issued an Amber Alert in her case.\nTwelve-year-old Christina Tedder disappeared Dec. 24 while walking from her home to a nearby convenience store. Six days later, a man who was an acquaintance of Tedder's family led investigators to her body in a creek just north of Indianapolis.\nMarion County authorities said they did not request an alert in her case because no one witnessed an abduction or crime.\nThe U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the national Amber Alert system, says time is of the essence in abductions because statistics show three-quarters of the children killed by their kidnappers are slain within the first three hours of their disappearance.\nBut national guidelines say police should confirm an abduction has been occurred before issuing an alert, and finding witnesses or other evidence can take time.\nMore than 11,500 children were reported missing in Indiana last year, Indiana State police spokesman 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said Tuesday, and 368 girls and 293 boys have not yet been found.\nSome people argue that police should issue an Amber Alert whenever a child is reported missing, even without evidence of an abduction. Bursten said if that were done, police would be issuing an average of 33 Amber Alerts a day, or one every 43 minutes.\n"That's why each one of these cases has to be evaluated on its own merits and circumstances," he said.