There isn't one single "longest" case globally, as definitions vary, but some of the most enduring missing child cases include the Beaumont Children (Australia, 1966) and Marjorie West (USA, 1938), with Marjorie West's case being unresolved for over 87 years, making her a strong contender for one of the longest-missing, while cases like Cheryl Grimmer (Australia, 1970) and Mary Boyle (Ireland, 1977) remain prominent long-term mysteries.
The longest-missing child case is widely considered to be Marjorie West, who vanished in Pennsylvania in 1938 at age 4 and remains missing, now for over 87 years, with no definitive resolution. Other long-term missing children cases include Dennis Martin (missing since 1969) and Mary Boyle (missing since 1977), highlighting enduring mysteries where children disappeared under perplexing circumstances, with families seeking answers for decades.
Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person, who at the age of 3 disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. The Daily Telegraph described her disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
Luis Armando Albino was six years old when he was kidnapped by a stranger in 1951. A DNA test his niece took "just for fun" led to his family discovering their long-lost relative more than 70 years later.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., 20-month-old son of the famous aviator and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped about 9:00 p.m., on March 1, 1932, from the nursery on the second floor of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey.
The twins were notorious delinquents, who Dr. Gero would meet by chance while looking for fresh material for his experiments. He then kidnapped them and restructured them into Android 17 and Android 18.
According to data from the 2019 United States Census, people who are Black or African American make up 13.4% of the United States population (QuickFacts). However, nearly 40% of missing persons are people of color (“Statistics,” Black and Missing). Black children make up about 33% of all missing child cases.
A woman who went missing 52 years ago has been found alive and well after police released a grainy photograph as part of an appeal, solving one of Britain's longest-running missing person cases. Sheila Fox, now 68, disappeared from Coventry in 1972 when she was 16.
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Madeleine was 3 years old when she vanished on a trip to Portugal, visiting from the U.K., with her parents and two siblings in 2007. The girl was later discovered to be missing from her bed along with an open window to the room where she had been sleeping. Madeleine has never been found and no body has been located.
Kidnapping rate - Country rankings
The highest value was in Belgium: 10.3 kidnappings per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Bermuda: 0 kidnappings per 100,000 people.
In the mid-1980s, milk cartons with photos of Missing Children on them made their debut. The first child to appear on one of those milk cartons was Etan Patz, a 6-year-old from New York who disappeared walking to the bus stop in May 1975. He has Never been found.
Mary never returned, and despite extensive searches and decades of investigation, no trace of her has ever been found. Last Known Movements: Mary was visiting her maternal grandparents when she went outside.
Patricia Kopta, Pittsburgh woman missing for over 30 years, found alive in Puerto Rico: "Total shock"
6-year-old boy kidnapped 73 years ago from California park found alive and well as senior citizen. Luis Albino was taken on Feb. 2, 1951, from a park in Oakland before he was found on the East Coast thanks to DIY DNA kits.
Baby Holly's story shocked the world in 2021 when she was found alive. She'd been missing for more than 40 years. Her story started back in 1981 when a young couple was found murdered, and no one knew who they were.
Ms Murphy, aged 51 at the time she went missing, was last seen alive on February 4, 2024, when she left her home in Ballarat for a morning run. Her body has not been found despite a number of police and community searches.
Yes, the search for Madeleine McCann is technically ongoing, with British police (Operation Grange) still investigating, but recent large-scale searches in Portugal by German police in mid-2025 ended without breakthroughs, and while German suspect Christian Brückner is considered the prime suspect, there's insufficient evidence for charges, leaving the case in a stalled state despite renewed interest and intermittent searches.
Kidnapping for ransom is a common occurrence in various parts of the world today. In 2018, the United Nations found Pakistan and England had the highest number of kidnappings while New Zealand had the highest rate among the 70 countries for which data is available.
The targets of hate crime
Of the 11,679 hate crimes reported: 5,866 were on the basis of race. 3,004 against Black people. 797 against Latinx people (the second highest ever recorded).
According to another source, only about 100 cases per year can be classified as abductions by strangers. According to the State Department, between 2008 and 2017 an average of about 1,100 children were abducted from the U.S. to a foreign country.
Marron (マーロン, Māron) is the daughter of Krillin and Android 18.
1984 (AGE 749) - Pilaf saga. 1985 (AGE 750) - 21st tournament / Red Ribbon saga.
The two suffer from moral agency issues due to Future Gero's altering/brainwashing them to hate humanity and believe they were purely killing machines, with them ending up believing their goal was to wipe out humanity as a likely unintended side effect of the reprogramming Gero did.