JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Every second counts when a child is reported missing.
As investigators know, the task of tracking them down and bringing them home only grows more challenging with each passing moment. Most children are found within 48 hours of being reported missing, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
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After that? The odds aren’t promising.
So, it was astonishing when two Jacksonville siblings, 6-year-old Braxton Williams and his 5-year-old sister, Bri’ya, were found in the woods Tuesday afternoon – 52 hours after seemingly disappearing from their Westside home while their parents prepared for a family barbecue.
“Time is the enemy when it comes to missing children,” said Robert Lowery, vice president of the NCMEC, the nation’s clearinghouse for cases involving missing children. “The longer they’re gone, the more difficult our job is at finding them and getting them back home.”
The siblings were reported missing about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, roughly two hours after they were last seen, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. An Amber Alert was issued about four hours later, leading to a massive search involving hundreds of personnel from local, state and federal agencies.
As the effort continued Tuesday, JSO Chief of Investigations T.K. Waters said time was of the essence as the search neared the “crucial” 48-hour mark. But several hours later, searchers caught the break they were hoping for when the children were found in a rundown building nestled in the woods.
It appears the children wandered away from home on their own, Sheriff Mike Williams said.
“That was the best-case scenario for us, and it was the one we put the most time and effort into obviously,” Williams said at a Tuesday evening news conference. “But as we got a couple of days into the operation, you know, you’ve got to give more time and attention to other scenarios.”
It’s worth noting that most Amber Alerts result in the children being found. In fact, according to data compiled by the NCMEC, missing children were found in 96 percent of cases reported last year.
Unsurprisingly, they’re more likely to be found within the first 24-hour window.
The center found there were only recovery details available from law enforcement agencies in 117 of the 161 alerts issued in 2018. Of those, 97 recoveries (or 83 percent of cases) took place within that time frame. Only 10 recoveries (8.5 percent) happened after 48 hours had ticked by.
The circumstances of the Williams siblings’ disappearance also place them in the minority, since they weren’t taken by an adult. Last year, 95 percent of children involved in Amber Alerts were abducted, either by family members or someone else.
Just six cases (or 4 percent) were children who were lost, injured or otherwise missing (or LIM), which is how the center categorizes cases when children under the age of 10 get lost on their own.
Based on preliminary details, the sheriff said it appears the Williams children were by themselves all along. It’s not yet clear if they spent the whole time where they were found, or if they were on the move.
“We’ll find out more in the next couple days as we’re able to talk to them a little more in-depth about how they got there,” he said. “Whether they were there for both nights, we don’t know.”