On this date, 3 April 1997, Laura
Kate Smither was abducted and went
missing in Friendswood, Texas. In loving memory of her, I will endorse the
Laura Recovery Center that was founded by her parents, Bob and
Gay Smither. I will post information from Wikipedia and the official website.
The Laura Recovery Center
exists to prevent abductions and runaways and to recover missing children by
fostering a Triangle of Trust among law enforcement, communities and a missing
child's families. The center is headquartered in Friendswood, Texas, United
States. The center was founded by Bob and Gay Smither in response to the murder
of their daughter Laura Kate Smither (April 23, 1984 - April 3, 1997).
Laura Smither was abducted near her Friendswood,
Texas, home on April 3, 1997 while she was jogging. A volunteer ground search,
which consisted of more than 6,000 volunteers and covered over 800 square miles
(2,000 km²), was organized by her community. The search for Laura Smither
quickly spread across the nation. Her murdered body was discovered April 20 in
a regional water retention pond 10 miles from her home.
The person who abducted and murdered
Laura has not been charged.
The Center focuses on Education,
Search, and Prevention related to child abduction and child safety.
Resources for families with missing
children are offered on the center's website, including a free on-line Flyer
Creation page, a free on-line Child ID kit, and on-line access to the LRC
Search Manual.
When the center accepts a case one of
the first actions taken is to post a flyer with information about the missing
child. The flyers are posted to the Center's missing child page. Once on-line,
the missing child flyer can be e-mailed and faxed by any visitor to the site to
help distribute information about the missing child. The Laura Recovery Center
began adding Quick Response Codes to its flyers in October 2010. The QR Code
will direct users of smart phones to a page where they can help distribute the
missing child's flyer.
The Center has organized numerous
community led searches for abducted children, including those for Danielle Van
Dam and Morgan Harrington.
Danielle's was the group's first out-of-state effort. The police search for her
concentrated on places their only suspect had been. The Center-organized search
found her far from where police had focused.
A map showing the locations of Laura
Recovery Center open cases, organized searches and other Center information is
available on-line.
To learn more, please
go here: http://www.lrcf.org/
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