Are there really 352 missing persons in Columbus? Depends on what you mean by ‘missing’

Columbus citizens have likely seen a missing person bulletin issued in the area, but how many people are actually missing?

Sgt. Thomas Hill with the Columbus Police Department’s Special Victims Unit said his unit handles all of the missing persons cases that Columbus sees each year.

The CPD Special Victims Unit has received 352 missing persons related reports in 2024 as of May 17. However, not all of these people are actually missing in the classic sense of the word.

A missing person’s report can be classified as critical missing, missing, runaway, and runaway habitual, Hill explained.

A critical missing case involves anyone under the age of 11, someone with documented physical impairment and those with a documented mental impairment, according to Hill.

CPD has just 26 active cases of missing persons dating back to 1985 with 15 of those occurring in 2024, Hill said.

A majority of the missing persons cases CPD sees are runaways, including habitual runaways in the area. Sometimes an individual will run away multiple times with a missing person report being filed for each incident, driving up the total case number.

A habitual runaway is generally a juvenile (17 and under) who has runaway under similar circumstances at least two or more times. Hill said the department has 25 runaway cases and 13 habitual runaway cases.

Hill said the department has had some instances of habitual runaways running away 12 times in a year.

“When you’re constantly sending out missing persons BOLOs (be on the look out) it looks like we have a chronic missing person problem. We really don’t,” Hill said. “The majority of our missing persons, they’re classified as missing persons because of the way we have to put them into the national crime information center.”

In some missing persons cases where the SVU is called in, the person is found within the 12-hour period in which they were reported missing.

“We’re usually going to be out for anywhere from four hours to eight hours on an average call out, and generally, probably eight out of ten times, we’re going to find that person during the call out,” Hill said regarding an after hours call out typically involving a critically missing person.

Hill said CPD’s patrol division will sometimes close cases before the case reaches the department to be assigned to an investigator. When the case does reach a SVU investigator, the investigator will typically find the person within 48-72 hours from the time of the report, according to Hill.

Hill said abductions in the area are rare. The most recent abduction in the area was a case in October 2023 where two children were taken from a Columbus Burger King.

Hill said other issues the Department sees include custodial issues involving parents and their children, people with dementia who wander, and instances where an individual will report someone missing and not inform law enforcement when the individual returns.

This story was originally published May 31, 2024 at 2:54 PM.