There have been a lot of statistics listed over the threads. I found some interesting ones here as well:
there is a great chance that whoever did this was fast, methodical, able to do his crime and then dispose of Somer within a very short time period. A very simialr case comes to mind that happened in Toronto, the Holly Jones case. I belive she was 9 yrs old, she was a few blocks from home and was abducted by a stranger. After her body was found, (she had been dismembered), Police went door to door asking for voluntary DNA samples. When the man who ended being convicted of this crime refused to submit, he became suspect and was proven guilty. He admitted to the crime and said he had molested and killed Holly within 2 hours of taking her.
Missing Children Statistics
Research and Statistics involving Crimes Against Children and Teens
The Kidsearch Network believes that Immediate Response by an experienced search team is necessary. because,
1) there is typically over a two hour delay in making the initial missing child report (60%), and 2) the vast majority (74%) of the abducted children who are murdered are dead within three hours of the abduction. (Source: Attorney General of the State of Washington, who did a study of cases reported to law enforcement in 1997)
There are estimated to be about 100 cases per year in the US where a child is abducted and murdered.
The victims of these cases are "average" children, leading normal lives, and living with normal families, typical low-risk victims. The vast majority of them are girls (76%), with the average age being slightly over 11 years of age. In 80% of cases, the initial contact between the victim and killer is within 1/4 mile of the victim's residence.
Over half (57%) of these child abduction murders are committed by a killer who is a stranger to the victim. Family involvement in this type of case is infrequent (9%). However, the relationship between the victim and the killer varies with the gender and age of the victim. The youngest females, 1-5 years old, tend to be killed by friends or acquaintances (64%), while the oldest females, 16-17 years old, tend to be killed by strangers (also 64%). The relationship between the killer and victim is different for the male victims. The youngest male victims (1-5 years old) are most likely to be killed by strangers (also 64%), as are the teenage males (13-15 years old, 60% and 16-17 years old, 58%).
The average age of killers of abducted children is around 27 years old. They are predominantly unmarried (85%) and half of them (51%) either live alone (17%) or with their parents (34%). Half of them are unemployed, and those that are employed work in unskilled or semi-skilled labor occupations. Therefore, the killers can generally be characterized as "social marginals."
Almost two-thirds of the killers (61%) had prior arrests for violent crimes, with slightly more than half of the killers' prior crimes (53%) committed against children. The most frequent prior crimes against children were rape (31% of killers) and other sexual assault (45% of killers). Sixty-seven percent of the child abduction murderers' prior crimes were similar in M.O. to the murder that was committed by the same killer.
Commonly, the killers are at the initial victim-killer contact site for a legitimate reason (66%). They either lived in the area (29%) or were engaging in some normal activity. Most of the victims of child abduction murder are victims of opportunity (57%). Only in 14 percent of cases did the killer choose his victim because of some physical characteristic of the victim. The primary motivation for the child abduction murder is sexual assault.
After the victim has been killed, 52 percent of the bodies are concealed to prevent discovery. In only 9% of cases is the body openly placed to insure its discovery.
A unique pattern of distance relationships exists in child abduction murders. The initial contact site is within 1/4 mile of the victim's last known location in 80% of cases. Conversely, the distance between the initial contact site and the murder site increases to distances greater than 1/4 mile (54%). The distance from the murder site to the body recovery site again decreases, to less than 200 feet in 72 percent of cases.
It was discovered that once the murder investigation has begun, the name of the killer is known to the police within the first week in 74% of cases.
While at times the media seems to "get in the way," in the end they are much more likely to have a positive effect on the investigation (31% of cases) than a negative one (6% of cases). In short, the media are more likely to bring witnesses forward than to aid the killer in his escape. The media had no effect at all in 63% of the investigations.
Source:
http://www.kidsearchnetwork.org/research-statistics.html
