New working group could help Kent missing persons cases

Megan Dye’s parents reported the then 17-year-old as missing when she didn’t come home after her 9 p.m. curfew on July 8, 2020.

Although police gathered evidence indicating Dye left on her own accord, Kent City Police Lt. Mike Lewis said he approached her case like any other, treating it as a “genuine missing person’s case” while the hours ticked quickly by.

“Time is not on our side when it comes to finding a missing person, so that is something that should be stressed,” he said. “Those first several hours or a few days are very precious moments where you still want to try and track their whereabouts using their cell phone before it becomes lost.”

After discovering Dye met an older individual online, Lewis said police grew concerned about her safety and enlisted voluntary groups to searchTannery Park in Kent, where she was last seen, before enlisting the help of the U.S. Marshal Service.

With their help, the Kent Police located Dye in Cincinnati two days later and reunited her with her family on July, 10, 2020.

This case was a success, but Kent Police continue to receive a number of missing person reports. 16 reports have been made so far in 2025, and over the last decade, a total of 375 reports were filed, according to Lewis.

Kent is among several Ohio cities noticing a slight increase in missing persons cases. Following a decline in missing children’s cases after 2018, where 19,902 children were reported missing, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office observed a slight increase in 2022 with 15,555 cases. 

As a resultGovernor Mike Dewine created the Missing Persons Working Group to help law enforcement address areas in these investigations that need improvement and to educate the public about these cases.

Andy Wilson, director of the Ohio Public Safety Department, served as the chair, overseeing its 24 members, composed of law enforcement and families of missing persons, and helped determine the groups’ final recommendations.

The group also included of members of the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults, Ohio Department of Children and Youth, Ohio Department of Aging and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Aimee Chapman, sister of Andrew Chapman who went missing in 2006, and Jonesia Cook, mother of Joshua Al-Lateef Jr. who went missing and was later found deceased in 2024, represented the family members of missing people during the group’s meetings. 

The group met six times starting on Jan. 23, 2025 and concluding on April 17, 2025. Following presentations centered around Amber Alerts, law enforcement, recognizing missing persons, case procedures, mental health and the families of missing persons, DeWine announced their 18 recommendations in a press conference on May 27, and the group disbanded following the announcement. 

From these recommendations, the Ohio Community Police Collaborative, a 12-person panel composed of law enforcement and community leaders establishing standards for law enforcement, updated their practices for missing persons cases on August 13.

These updates involve entering case information in criminal justice systems, implementing an alert system to actively notify the public, in addition to Amber Alerts, and requiring law enforcement to follow-up with family members during their investigations. 

“A number of families that came and spoke for the working group expressed the feeling that their loved one had just kind of been forgotten about in the system,” Wilson said.

The FIND Act, sponsored by Representatives Christine Cockley, Kevin Ritter and the group, is a proposed bill requiring law enforcement to enter missing people into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUS, within 30 days of their case being filed.

Jennifer Lester, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation criminal analyst, was a part of the working group’s panel and voiced concerns about law enforcement not having access to information.

“If somebody was reported back in the ‘80s,’70s or ‘90s, as we’re solving a lot of our unidentified remains, we’re finding that they were originally reported to some jurisdiction,” she said. “We just can’t find the original report because obviously back then, they weren’t digitized.”

With her push, the group created the recommendation for law enforcement to save all files pertaining to a missing person’s case and digitize them, which can be achieved through the FIND Act’s entries into NamUS.

For missing persons cases, the U.S. Marshals Office in Northeast Ohio will either become involved because local enforcement reaches out to them, like in Dye’s case, or a federal or state department approaches them, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Vincent Piccoli.

Although the Marshals’ role in a case may vary, through his presentations for the group, Piccoli described the criteria for the Marshal to take part in an investigation and the need to keep families up to date.

“It’s equally important because the family is the one dealing with a lot of it, [and] most of the time is day in and day out until their loved one or family member is found,” he said.

For Dye’s case, her parents reported her missing and were cooperative with the Kent Police, who approached her case respectfully, making Lewis proud of the quick resolution.

“I think we did a tremendous job. We had reason to believe from the get go that she left voluntarily,” he said. “We knew that she had met somebody online, but still we were treating it as a missing juvenile and somebody who was not mature enough to make those decisions on her own.”

Law enforcement plays a large part in the investigations and filing of reports, however, they can only do so much to generate awareness for these causes. Due to the work of the working group, Wilson discovered the need to educate the public.

“We need to do a better job of educating the public on how to file a missing person’s report,” he said. “So, for instance, there’s this myth out there that you have to wait 24 hours, if it’s an adult, before you can file a missing person’s case.”

During the groups’ final meeting on April 17, Ehrsam presented a presentation on how Columbus Police’s Missing Persons Unit conducts investigations and receives reports. 

In his presentation, Ehrsam noted there is no waiting period to report individuals missing in Ohio because of the limited time law enforcement has to investigate.

With this in mind, the group is creating websites and informational packets, explaining how to file a report.

Although Lewis is confident in the Kent City Police Department’s  response to missing persons cases, he is appreciative of the changes the working group will prompt across the state.

He emphasized the importance of not allowing the public to “go numb” to these cases and using resources like digital highway sign alerts to keep people informed.

“You don’t want to live with that where you didn’t treat it as a serious incident and then something bad happened to that person,” he said.