Family Found: Sisters Reunited In South Korea Thanks to Private Investigator

Wanda King's life in the United States has been a good one.

But as a child in North Korea, she lived under communism and saw the effects of war. She remembers seeing red skies after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and her mother warning, "Don't you go outside! You're going to be sick." As American bombs fell on her own country during the Korean War, she and her family fled south with hundreds of other refugees to escape the fighting. They ate insects and slept in rice paddies to survive.

"I don't have a happy life when I was young," she said. "I have a hard life."

Although conditions improved after the war, she was still living in poverty in 1962 when she met Ben King, a young soldier from Davie County. He fell in love with her, and he vowed not to leave South Korea without her.

She was 23 when she married him and left her family behind in Seoul. She built her own family in a new country.

Her children grew up with plenty of food and without fear of bombs falling in the night. King, now 68, watched with pride as they married and started forming their own families.

Despite all that she had, King ­mourned what she had lost.

A Missing Persons Investigation

WWAY NewsChannel 3, Wilmington, NC: Local Lost: A Missing Persons Investigation: "Every year thousands of people are reported missing in North Carolina. While most of them are found, some never come home, leaving their families wondering what happened.

April 15, 1994 is the day one family will never forget. That's the day 38-year-old Delores Melton simply vanished.

Virginia Witten is Delores Melton's sister. 'We don't really want to find out who did something to her, we know somebody did something, we just want to find out where she is and bring her back and put her someplace where we know where she is,' Witten said."

Bills address cases of missing persons

News-Sentinel | 02/05/2007 | Bills address cases of missing persons: "A cousin of a Madison woman who disappeared more than two years ago is working with state lawmakers to establish new procedures for police to follow when investigating missing adults.

Legislation introduced in the House and Senate also would require police to collect DNA evidence for people who are missing as well as from unidentified bodies and put them in a national database for possible matches.

Keri Dattilo’s cousin, Molly Dattilo of Madison, disappeared more than two years ago while in Indianapolis attending summer classes,

“This legislation helps law enforcement prioritize cases,” Keri Dattilo said. “My family and I just don’t want to have any other families go through the experience we went through. We want to see some changes.”

Molly Dattilo’s brother reported her missing two days after she disappeared. The family said the woman did not take her money, car or other belongings. Scott Robinett, deputy chief of investigations for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said the Dattilo investigation continues as a missing-persons case but not necessarily a criminal one."

Missing persons system tried

The Cincinnati Post - Missing persons system tried: "Kenton County, Ky. police will now employ a high-tech notification system to help locate missing people.

Chief Ed Butler said Thursday that the department will work with A Child Is Missing alert program to search for children and other people reported missing locally.

Under the program, Kenton County police immediately notify the Florida-based organization when someone is reported missing locally.

The organization uses sophisticated information-gathering and mapping systems to quickly place thousands of phone calls that send messages detailing the missing person's description and last known whereabouts, as well as police contact information.

The nationwide nonprofit organization helps law enforcement find missing individuals across the country by immediately placing up to 1,000 phone calls each minute to those in affected areas."

Better protocol needed to find missing persons

Better protocol needed to find missing persons | Home News Tribune Online: "When police located a 73-year-old Alzheimer's patient who had gone missing last Wednesday, the swift and relatively simple rescue might have suggested that the county's new protocols for finding 'at-risk' missing people are working just fine, and maybe they are.

Still, one has to wonder if more needs to be done, especially in the most complex cases involving a child in hiding, for example, or a mentally handicapped person who has wandered off the beaten path. The recent history of such incidents in New Jersey makes it clear that Middlesex County and the state should adopt stronger search-and-rescue guidelines.

The elderly South Brunswick man who was tracked down 3 1/2 miles from his home was on foot and on a main road. But what if he wasn't? It was frigid that night. Suppose he had fallen or was lost in the woods?"

Missing-persons cases tax police

The News-Press: Fort Myers: "Missing persons investigations tax police resources, require some hard investigative judgments and very often leave families dissatisfied with the results, police say.

Some cases have what police call “red flags” — circumstances that seem to scream foul play. Others are tougher. Sometimes they’re just people who want to disappear.

Most times, records show, they’re kids, and a lot of them are habitual runaways."