More than half a million people go missing every year- where are they going?

Mother still searching for answers 27 years after 19-year-old daughter disappears

Suzanne Lyall was last seen on March 2, 1998 reportedly exiting a CDTA bus at Collins circle on the UAlbany campus after leaving her job at Babbage’s inside Crossgate’s Mall. At the time she was just a 19-year-old college student. Suzanne joined the Lyall family in 1979, a surprise to her parents Mary and Doug already raising two preteens. Mary describes her daughter as reserved but smart, focused and hard-working. “She was so friendly, she always said she was shy, but everyone who met her just said she was so great,” Lyall said. “She would walk in the room and her smile would light it up.” The hardworking, computer whiz had a routine like clockwork which her mother says, made it harder to accept when she went missing. Though reports indicate Suzanne believed she was being stalked before she went missing. Over the years, though her daughter‘s remains have never been found and no person of interest named- Mary created the center for Hope, missing persons day, compiled a book of Suzanne‘s poetry, and advocated for federal legislation. State Police are still investigating Suzie’s disappearance and the community stands with Mary, still searching for answers. #coldcase #missing #missingperson #truecrime #disappearance #unsolved

Israel Keyes: the nomadic serial killer

Israel Keyes was a serial sexual killer who is believed to have operated across the United States between the years of 1997 and 2012.In the first part of our analysis of Israel Keyes, I speak with forensic psychologist Dr. Chris Kunkle about the movements and motives of the nomadic serial killer. This episode also contains actual FBI audio from investigators who sat down with keys himself before he took his own life in an Alaska jail cell. #israelkeyes #fbi #audiotapes #interrogation #investigation #serialkiller

Why fantasy turns into crime: Toybox Killer David Parker Ray (part II)

In this episode we explore how, why and when fantasy turns criminal. From extreme examples like the toy box killer David Parker Ray to everyday fantasies like acing a job interview or winning a basketball game. WATCH PART ONE: https://youtu.be/17xmD6a1kzQ

Jaliek Rainwalker: adoptive grandmother continues to search for answers

Jaliek Rainwalker was 12 years-old when he disappeared on Nov. 1, 2007. He was last seen with his adoptive father Stephen Kerr, who initially claimed the pre-teen ran away from the Kerr family’s vacant Greenwich home. Despite countless leads, Jaliek has never been found, something that haunts his adoptive grandmother Barbara Reeley everyday. Reeley has since moved to Florida, but lived 40 miles away from her daughter Jocelyn but saw her grandchildren several times a week and held ‘granny camp’ for two weeks in the summer at her house. Kerr was named a person of interest by police in 2017, but no arrests in the boy’s disappearance have ever been made. It was July 2002, when Jaliek came to Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald joining their three biological sons and an adoptive daughter. The couple, Jaliek’s 7th set of foster parents, moved to adopt him just two years later. Things were good in the Kerr/McDonald house, until they weren’t anymore- according to Barbara Reeley- McDonald’s mother. Barbara recalls a time she pulled up to the home and heard yelling from outside. She says she walked in to see Jaliek flailing his arms around, but he ran to her and just hugged her. She explained that Jaliek would become extremely frustrated if he couldn’t do something such as button a shirt or complete a homework assignment. A little over a month before Jaliek’s disappearance the family attempted to revoke or reverse the adoption, Barbara citing Jaliek’s size as he approached adolescence and his existing emotional conditions- including Reactive attachment disorder or RAD. The courts explained that the complicated process should be a last resort, instead suggesting the family seek out respite care for Jaliek. That’s where he was, with his former foster mother, Elaine Persons, when Stephen picked him up Nov. 1. They were last seen at the Latham Red Robin location. Dr. Tina Lane, who runs the Criminal Investigation Resource Center at Russell Sage, is from Washington County and knows a whole community still searching for the young boy. Though suspicions have surrounded the boy’s adoptive father for years, police are hesitant to try the case without a body, according to retired State Police Investigator, Tom Aiken. Investigator Aiken says a special prosecutor with experience in cases with no body needs to be brought in in order to “do it right.” Both Barbara and investigator Aiken shared the findings from the National Center for Missing and Exploited children in Washington D.C. Aiken says after 16 and a half years, time is now their enemy. Saying there is nothing to lose by taking a shot at it now. Jaliek’s grandmother says former Post-Star reporter Don Lehman is the expert on the case. Lehman remembers the intense searches in the weeks following Jaliek’s disappearance and an early encounter with the person of interest himself- Stephen Kerr. Barbara Reeley has never given up searching for Jaliek, to no end, even at the cost of losing contact with her daughter and her biological grandchildren.

More than half a million people go missing every year- where are they going?

In this episode, I discussed missing persons with Dr. Christina Lane. The conversation ranges in topics such as how does a body disappear in 2025 with so many cameras, how bodies are hidden differently in rural areas versus densely populated areas, most people that go missing do not want to be found, And more . Tune in weekly for new conversations with the criminology/psychology experts