Cynthia Joanna Florek was only four years old when she was abducted by her father from her mother's Toronto home, on 14 March 1982. After nine years, Cynthia's looks would have changed dramatically so the family turned to a brand new technology first available in 1984 - a computer system designed by IBM Canada called Computer Assisted Recovery Enhancement System (CARES). Bette Clark, an artist who worked in forensic identification services for the Metro Police Service in Toronto, took a picture of Cynthia at age four and aged her features to what she would look like at age 13. The family hired a private investigator who managed to track Cynthia to Santiago, Chile in a foster home where she had been abandoned by her father. And the resemblance of Clark's age progressed photos to what Cynthia Florek looked like when they found her was incredible.
A CBC news article from March 2013 entitled How Police Search for Missing Children Decades Later, reported that a few years earlier investigators located a Canadian child who had been missing for 15 years when they discovered photos on a social media account. These photos looked like the age progressed photos of the missing child. The name of the child recovered cannot be released as it involved a minor, but the child had been abducted at such a young age and removed from anything familiar from their past environment, they had no idea they had been abducted.
In a January 2022 blog post on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website, Colin McNally, who supervises the Forensic Imaging Unit says forensic artists have done more than 7500 age progressions of long-term missing children and 1800 children who have been age-progressed have been recovered, some directly because of the age progression.
All of the pictures below show three in a row. The left is a photo of the child at the age they went missing. The middle is the age progressed photo. The right is a photo of the child when they were found.
Carlina White was only 19 days old when she was abducted by a stranger from a New York hospital. At 23 she became suspicious about the woman who raised her as Netty Nance. She searched the NCMEC website and found a photo of a missing baby and an age progressed photo of a child that looked identical to her own child! DNA testing confirmed she was missing child, Carlina White!
Sara Eghbal-Brin was abducted by her father from France at age 3. In February 2002, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer pulled over a car in Nova Scotia and learned of the arrest warrant for Sara's father when running the license plate. After three years on the run in Canada in two different provinces, Sara was reunited with her mother.
Joseph Carson was abducted by his non-custodial father at age 3 and was missing for four years when his abductor took him to an auto parts store. Another customer who was in the store at the same time recognized Joseph and his abductor from the age progressed photo that was showing on a tv monitor in the store.
In 1981, Aric Austin vanished from Vancouver, Washington when he was two months old. An investigator recognized an age progressed photo of Aric on the NCMEC website, and he was reunited with his mother when he was 22 years old!
Two-year-old Daniel Markus, 2, was abducted in 2014 from Saint Lawrence, Pennsylvania. After he has bee missing for three years his age progressed photo was shown on the tv show, "The Hunt". He was recognized from his age progressed photo and reunited with his father.
Pictures, in particular age progressed pictures, can be a huge tool in reuniting missing children with their families. Please share their stories on your social media and get their pictures out to the public however you can!
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