In June 1974, 14-year-old Margaret Ellen Fox took the bus to meet a man who had responded to her add for babysitting services. She has never been heard from again
Thank you for sharing this story, it is disheartening to read of yet another case where there is a victim and no real explanation of what happened or who is responsible. This suggests that many do get away.
There were two aspects we wanted to further ponder about. First, is it common practice not to release voice recordings? One understands that these decisions are difficult, but how are these determinations made? The other is that there appear to be structural challenges to successfully completing investigations given the lack of interagency collaboration. Why do these obstacles remain and what are ways in which they could be overcome?
Thank you for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
In regard to releasing voice recordings, I think it can vary on a case to case basis. If they have a suspect in mind, they may not want to potentially alert him by releasing evidence. However, in a case like Margaret's, they had nothing to go on, so they probably should have released the recording much earlier in hopes someone may have recognized the voice. They claim the original recording had too much background noise, which they were only able to clean up years later. Either way, it seems irresponsible to have sat on it for 45 years!
As for a lack of interagency cooperation unfortunately, it seems to happen far too often.
Thank you for sharing this story, it is disheartening to read of yet another case where there is a victim and no real explanation of what happened or who is responsible. This suggests that many do get away.
There were two aspects we wanted to further ponder about. First, is it common practice not to release voice recordings? One understands that these decisions are difficult, but how are these determinations made? The other is that there appear to be structural challenges to successfully completing investigations given the lack of interagency collaboration. Why do these obstacles remain and what are ways in which they could be overcome?
Thank you for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
In regard to releasing voice recordings, I think it can vary on a case to case basis. If they have a suspect in mind, they may not want to potentially alert him by releasing evidence. However, in a case like Margaret's, they had nothing to go on, so they probably should have released the recording much earlier in hopes someone may have recognized the voice. They claim the original recording had too much background noise, which they were only able to clean up years later. Either way, it seems irresponsible to have sat on it for 45 years!
As for a lack of interagency cooperation unfortunately, it seems to happen far too often.