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Missing children expert still hopeful on 5-year anniversary of Lunsford disappearance

BENDALE, W.Va. — Saturday marks five years to the day since three-year-old Aliayah Lunsford went missing from her Lewis County home–with still no resolution of any kind for family members.

“Based on the experiences here at the National Center, we find children 98 to 99 percent of the time,” Robert Lowery, vice president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said Friday in a phone interview with MetroNews. “Sometimes those are tragedies, but in most occasions the children are alive and reunited with their families. We’ve become, as a nation, much better at finding children and reuniting them.”

But in the search for Aliayah Lunsford–the trail seems to have gone cold.

“We need to know what happened to her,” Lowery said. “There’s a real possibility that she’s alive. For nothing else, the urgency of that search has to stay one of our top priorities.”

Though not every case ends in reunion, Lowery cited examples like Elizabeth Smart, Gina DeJesus, and Amanda Berry as reasons to not give up hope.

“Because we don’t know what happened, we can’t assume the worst has happened with Aliayah until we know for certain,” Lowery said.

In the past, family members have expressed belief that she is still alive.

With that being said, Lowery recognizes the difficult problems that face law enforcement in this case. He said Aliayah may have been missing for several hours before it was reported.

“I do know there was a delay of reporting–at least up for a period of a couple of hours before law enforcement was even notified,” he said

Lena Lunsford, Aliayah’s mother, reported her child missing after 6 am on September 24, 2011.

“When it comes to missing children, we urge parents, law enforcement, and everyone to report immediately so we can immediately get all the resources that we can mobilized to find the child.”

Lowery said, in most cases, it’s those first few hours that make the difference–citing the recent tragic conclusion of a 1989 cold case in Minnesota.

“Say Aliayah was taken by a stranger,” he said. “If something were to happen to her–say she was killed–it generally will always happen within the first couple of hours.”

Still, he said, the search must continue. He was enthusiastic–pointing to a number of advancements in technology and police work since the Center first opened in 1984.

“The fact that a three-year-old disappears in this fashion I think strikes us all and mobilizes us all,” he said. “But, also, for those who live in the area, it changes us as a community. We may not look at our neighbors the same way.”

Above all else, Lowery said that any piece of information–old or new–should be turned over to law enforcement or anonymously to their tip line at 1-800-THE-LOST.

An anniversary vigil is scheduled for 6 pm at Jackson Mill Baptist Church, Saturday.





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