Latest news with #PearlPinson
The Star
a day ago
- The Star
Silicon Valley's role in a surprising missing-person case trend
It has been nine years since 15-year-old Pearl Pinson vanished on her way to school in Vallejo . For her father, James Pinson , the pain remains as fresh as the morning his daughter never came home. "The date etched in my mind forever, and that was the last time anybody saw her," Pinson said. Lynn Ching understands. Three years before Pearl went missing, Ching's 19-year-old son, Sean Sidi , said he was going to a nearby park in San Francisco , and hasn't been seen since, leaving her "trying to make sense of the whole thing". Missing persons in California Last year, an average of 163 people a day were reported missing across the United States , 19 a day in California and three a day in the Bay Area. But there are encouraging signs that technology – and efforts to curb its misuse by those who would use it to lure and prey upon the vulnerable – may be making such heartbreaking missing persons cases a little less common. Nationally, the rate of missing person reports per 100,000 people has fallen 21% from 2014 to 2024, according to an analysis by the Bay Area News Group . In California , it's dropped 23%, and in the nine-county Bay Area, the decline is even more pronounced, down 38% over that period. The decline in missing persons reports has primarily been those involving children under age 18, which account for three out of four missing person reports nationally and two out of three in California over the last 10 years. At the national level, reports of kids under age 18 going missing declined 24%, while those involving adults rose 6%. In California , missing children reports have fallen 28% while missing adult cases are up 5%. San Jose Police Public Information Officer Sgt. Jorge Garibay said some of the downward trend since 2017 had to do with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and activity restrictions that continued for the next couple of years. But the trend has continued since, and Garibay said that technology also has improved reunification efforts, often shortening the time a person remains missing and potentially reducing the volume of formal reports. "This includes public-facing platforms like social media, where calls for help or awareness posts can quickly gain traction and mobilise community support," Garibay said. Systems such as CHP's Endangered Missing Advisories and Santa Clara County's AlertSCC offer extra layers of outreach, sending geotargeted alerts to the public when time is critical. GPS capabilities in smartphones and vehicles also allow families or caregivers to track movement or share location data in real-time, sometimes enabling reunification well before law enforcement intervention is even required. "Technology – in its many forms – can be a significant factor in driving more timely and effective outcomes, and these tools represent meaningful shifts in how quickly information can move, how communities can respond, and how individuals can take a more active role in resolving or even preventing a missing person incident," Garibay said. Improved mental health care is also helping reduce the number of missing person reports, Garibay said. But while there's been a drop in missing person reports, the percentage reported missing who remain unaccounted for each year – 11% of reported cases in 2024 across the US – has seen little change. It's up 21% nationally from a decade ago, but down 9% since a peak in 2019. Between 2014 and 2024, the actual number of missing cases in the Bay Area exceeded 213,600. Of those, 201,300 were located – 94%. Most counties maintained recovery rates above 95%, particularly for children. Santa Clara County consistently approached a 98% recovery rate. However, San Francisco experienced a decline, with adult recovery rates dropping to around 80% by 2024. Law enforcement agencies across the Bay Area acknowledge the challenges in missing persons investigations, particularly in large, densely populated cities. "In general, SJPD has seen an increase in adult cases related to the unhoused population," said Garibay, noting that mental health struggles, drug use and voluntary absences often complicate such cases. "Although a majority of missing person cases are voluntary and do not involve foul play, SJPD detectives take all cases seriously and work diligently to ensure the person is returned home or contact is made with their loved ones," Garibay said. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children , a private nonprofit that supports searches for minors, has been assisting with Sean Sidi's case since 2013 and has supported the family with a case manager and forensic tools, including age progression images. John Bischoff , a NCMEC vice president, said that while most missing youth cases are runaways or custody-related, there's a growing concern about online enticement, where children are lured away by adults, often under false pretenses. While technology has proven helpful at locating missing people, it has also been a tool for people with bad intentions to prey on young people. "We're seeing a lot more children communicating with people they don't necessarily know online, which is a problem," Bischoff said. "That's where they may be communicating with someone online, and while it looks like they left home on their own, they may have left under false pretenses. They may have gone to meet someone, not realising that person has bad intentions. It's an issue we're seeing." NCMEC conducted an analysis of the 476 children reported missing to NCMEC between 2020 and 2023 who were enticed online. California had 35 cases, ranking second, while Texas had the most missing cases among the states, 68. Data show that online enticement cases tend to involve younger victims, with a higher share of children under 15, especially those 13 and younger, compared to other missing child cases. The report indicated that most children were enticed online by conversations with adults on social media sites, messenger apps and gaming sites. The five most common sites used to lure children are Snapchat , Instagram, Facebook , Discord and TikTok. Sophie Vogel , a spokesperson for Meta, said that last September, Meta launched teen accounts on Instagram with built-in protections – they're private by default, have strict messaging limits, and users under 16 need a parent's permission to change any of these settings. And in April, Meta announced it is rolling out similar teen accounts for Facebook and Messenger, with additional safety restrictions. Other platforms did not respond to a request for comment. The NCMEC report showed that from 2020 to 2023, instances of online enticement decreased on Instagram and Facebook each year, while they increased on other platforms like Snapchat , Discord and TikTok. "That's something we think aligns with the protections we've implemented over the past five years," Vogel said. "We've done a lot to prevent unwanted contact between adults and teens. For a long time, we haven't allowed adults to initiate private messages with teens unless the teen has already followed them. That's an important protection." For families agonising over those still missing, they are left hoping that periodic reminders about their loved ones one day will trigger a response, and if not a reunification, at least some answers. "We still hope we'll get that call, we still hope that we'll get that tip so that Sean comes to our door and shows up alive," said Ching, who reported her son Sean missing May 21, 2013 . Pearl was grabbed off a pedestrian bridge on May 25, 2016 , by a man with no known connection to her who died in a shootout a day later in Santa Barbara , leaving no clue to her whereabouts. Last month on the anniversary of her abduction, her family and friends gathered at the bridge to plead for help finding her. "I fought for the answers for nine years," Pinson said, "but we'll continue searching for her." – Silicon Valley, San Jose, Calif./Tribune News Service
New York Post
28-05-2025
- New York Post
Haunting photo of missing teen Pearl Pinson, who was snatched off the street 9 years ago and never seen again
Police have plenty of clues to what happened to northern California teen Pearl Pinson, who was kidnapped at gunpoint nine years ago while walking to school. They have a dead suspect, a getaway car, the gun and zip ties used to kidnap the 15-year-old — and even a fake 'suicide letter' meant to hide the circumstances of her death. The only thing they don't have is any idea where Pinson is, or what really happened to her. 4 Pearl Pinson was 15 when she was abducted in Vallejo, California, on May 25, 2016. Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office Advertisement The mystery still tortures Pinson's loved ones, who gathered for a candlelight vigil Sunday night at the last place she was seen in 2016 in her Bay Area hometown of Vallejo. 'It gets worse every year,' her father, James Pinson told the Post-Herald last year. One photo of Pinson that has been widely circulated by her loved ones features the teen staring directly at the camera with one piercing blue eye, the other covered by her dark locks. Advertisement It is a haunting reminder that her family has never learned her fate. The missing persons alert for Pinson has stayed open since witnesses saw a man grab her on a pedestrian overpass, hold her at gunpoint with a .38-caliber revolver and drag her away as she screamed for help on May 25, 2016. 4 This undated photo provided by the California Highway Patrol shows Fernando Castro, suspected of kidnapping Pinson. AP Surveillance footage caught a gold Saturn belonging to 19-year-old Fernando Castro leaving the scene, and cops found .38-caliber ammo, zip ties, a homemade gun silencer and a fake 'suicide note' in Castro's house, according to the Daily Republic. Advertisement Police spotted Castro himself 30 hours later in Santa Barbara County — a six-hour drive from Vallejo. Castro led cops on a white-knuckle chase that involved multiple shootouts that finally ended when officers shot him dead as he tried to ram them with his car, according to a report by the Santa Barbara County district attorney's office. 4 Pearl Pinson, who would be 24 years old today. Pearl Pinson 'Sadly, he may have taken the secret of what happened to Pearl with him to his grave,' the sheriff of Solano County, which includes Vallejo, wrote on Facebook Sunday. The post came with a reminder that Pinson's case is still open and a call for information that could help authorities locate her. Advertisement Pinson's family returns to the scene of her kidnapping every year to honor the lost girl, who is 24 now. They are also pushing for the pedestrian bridge to be named after her. 4 The gold Saturn is suspected to have been driven by Pinson's kidnapper. But the family has long given up hope that she might be found alive. 'One day I said to myself, 'I may never see her again.' Reality hit,' Pearl's sister Rose told the Post-Herald in 2023. 'Even though there are cases open for 20 plus years and they have people hidden in sheds. … But my sister is not here because she was shot and I believe killed here because of a (expletive) who would rather take a girl instead of getting the mental help he needed or whatever he was going through,' she told the outlet.
