BELLEVUE, WI (WTAQ) – Governor Scott Walker has declared April as Missing Persons Awareness Month, and local officials and advocates will take part in an event in honor of all missing persons in Wisconsin on Sunday.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Department will host the event from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. at their office, 2684 Development Drive in Bellevue.
“After researching several databases I found that Wisconsin has 164 missing persons,” says Marsha Loritz, who’s become an advocate for this issue in the years since her mom, Victoria Prokopovitz disappeared. “Every one of these people has a face and a story.”
Guest speakers on Sunday include Wisconsin State Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt and Jenni Thompson from the Polly Klaas organization. Crime Stoppers is co-sponsoring the event and will talk about how people can contact them anonymously with information to help solve crimes.
Parents can take part in free fingerprinting and getting Child ID Kits and will conclude with a balloon release for all those people still missing.
“Having little previous knowledge of the frequency of missing persons I have since become acutely aware of the difficulty families face when a loved one goes missing,” Loritz says. “Throughout this ordeal I have become a voice for the missing as well as a source of support for their loved ones. I have found my voice and I am using it to the best of my ability to help others.”
UPCOMING ANNIVERSARY
On April 25, 2013 at approximately 10 p.m., 60-year-old Victoria Prokopovitz was last seen at her Town of Pittsfield home at 5118 Kunesh Road. Monday will be exactly three years to the day.
“I can’t believe we’re here with still no answers,” Loritz says. “You just think about that day, what we’ve done so far and not letting people forget, just trying to remind people that she’s still missing. She’s still out there, somebody knows something.”
Prokopovitz left behind her purse with its contents including ID, money and cell phone. The family is offering a $17,000 reward for information leading to her location. It will expire in 90 days.
“I hope that one day we do have answers,” says Loritz. “And that we aren’t sitting her like this.”
Anyone that may have seen Victoria after the date of her disappearance or knows of her whereabouts are asked to call any of the following: the Brown County Sheriff’s Investigative Division at (920) 448-4230; Text to “GBTIP” plus your message to 274637 (CRIMES); or Crime Stoppers Hotline at (920) 432-STOP (7867). Persons who wish to remain anonymous can do so through the Crime Stoppers hotline.
NATIONAL ADVOCACY
This experience has pushed Loritz to become an advocate for a national missing person’s database.
“These faces are almost like my family…I care about them all and want them to find the answers that they deserve,” Loritz explains. “Some of these people have been missing for decades and don’t have family left that is searching, and they should not be forgotten.”
Loritz is among many urging lawmakers in Washington D.C. to pass Billy’s Law, also known as the Help Find the Missing Act.
Among the highlights of the proposal are:
- Authorizing, and therefore helping to ensure funding for, the National Missing Persons and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), which was created in July 2007 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide a missing persons/unidentified database that the public could access and contribute;
- Connecting NamUs with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in order to create more comprehensive missing persons and unidentified remains databases and streamlining the reporting process for local law enforcement;
- Expanding current law by requiring missing children be reported to NamUs (they already must be reported to NCIC);
- Creating an incentive grants program to help states, local law enforcement, and medical examiners and coroner’s report missing persons and unidentified remains to NCIC, NamUs, and the National DNA Index System (NDIS); and
- Calling on the DOJ to issue guidelines and best practices on handling missing persons and unidentified remains cases in order to empower law enforcement, medical examiners and coroners to help find the missing.
This bill is named after Billy Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut who went missing on August 24, 2004 at the age of 31. Billy’s family knows all too well the systemic challenges in trying to find the missing. They quickly learned that while federal law mandates law enforcement report missing children, there are no such requirements for adults – or unidentified bodies.
Compounding this problem is the fact that local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, and coroners, often don’t have the resources or training to voluntarily report these cases.
Finally, even when missing adults and remains are reported, the wide-range of unconnected federal, state, local, and non-profit databases to help match the missing with unidentified bodies, makes finding a match an often insurmountable challenge.
