The military won't allow a marine (stationed on a base at home) whose wife disappeared to assist her mother with handling media interviews? When someone disappears, you should be counting down the time in hours. Whether it's 48 or a few more, time is running out. I don't think the people arguing that public attention is unnecessary are putting themselves in the situation (and maybe they would argue that's a good thing, lol). The police have said they are treating the case like a "missing persons" case, yet they've also called in homicide investigators. A Facebook page was set up to ask the entire world to comment, and the Admins there are almost at the predictable stage where they're deleting more comments than they're allowing ("We did NOT set up this Facebook page so you people could come here and COMMENT. We set it up to tell you NOT to comment. I almost wish we hadn't set it up at all! Your speculation is ruining it for everyone"). There's the same old debate between advocating total secrecy and REALLY asking (making?) everyone who saw Erin last to PUBLICLY lay out what they saw. I believe the latter option is the best way to find a missing person. If someone close to the missing person is not responsible, it's still the best way to establish a timeline. Someone on the "Locate Erin" page keeps mentioning the old "the police don't want to jeopardize the case" line. However, exactly what is the priority? I'd be looking for my loved one first, and right now I wouldn't be so worried about the integrity of the case.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen a case where people are encouraged to be publicly open (I don't mean evidentiary details, but human observations). Maybe there's no way to force it. There's a language barrier, and I also think the way the most law enforcement agencies work needs to evolve. There are always nonsensical contradictions like the ones I mentioned. The only case where something close to true openness and crowdsourcing of ideas was utilized that I've seen recently was the Leanne Bearden case, which was a suicide. The police (correctly) said they DIDN'T suspect foul play, so there should have been no debate about letting the police "do their jobs." There was still a minor debate about it, incredibly. The husband, Josh, LOOKED kind of suspicious-y, but he stayed out there on Facebook answering questions and taking the hits until she was found in a nearby yard. Information was still missing about Leanne's activity leading up to her suicide. I believe her body could have been found sooner. After asking questions, we were told that she had grabbed JOSH'S backpack on her way out for a walk, for example. Also, he said his backpack was almost empty, and she exited through the garage (she clearly took a rope or something similar with her). Of course, I'm NOT NOT NOT suggesting ANYBODY knew what she was going to do, but only that the time frame leading up to her leaving the home was not covered in enough detail initially, perhaps for several possible reasons. Mostly, people are not told how important that interval of time is to figuring out what happened.
My point: More often than not, expecting people to be open in a public manner about what they heard and saw leading up to a disappearance certainly does not impede the effort of the police. If a police department asks people close to a missing person not to speak to the public, they'd better solve the case soon or expect a lot of deserved criticism. Otherwise, how do they KNOW which approach would have been more effective? If they aren't sure, why not do everything possible?
