National Missing Children’s Day: Find Missing Minnesota Kids

Every 40 seconds, the time it takes to heat up a slice of pizza in the microwave, a child is reported missing somewhere in America. Some are runaways, but others are abducted. Most have come home alive, due in part to efforts like those taking place Friday, May 25, on National Missing Children’s Day to reunite kids and their families.

In Minnesota, at least 51 children have been reported as missing since 1994.

That’s according to a database kept by the Polly Klaas Foundation that includes the names of more than 9,800 children reported missing from 1994-2017. The foundation is named for the California 12-year-old who was stolen from her home on Oct. 1, 1993, by a knife-wielding intruder who interrupted a children’s slumber party and carried her away. Her body was found nine weeks later, on Dec. 3, 1993.

The actual number of kids who are reported missing every year is hard to calculate, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, established in 1984 to provide a coordinated national approach to find missing kids. Because some children are never reported missing and others, like repeat runaways, are entered in the FBI National Crime Information Center each time they run away, there’s no way to reliably know how many children are missing.

Since its founding nearly 35 years ago, the NCMEC has assisted in the recovery of more than 260,000 children. But some have never been found.

Still missing in Minnesota, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, are these children:

Corrine Erstad
Age Now: 31

Corrine Erstad, of Inver Grove Heights, was last seen around 7:30 p.m. on June 1, 1992 after she went outside to play at a nearby park.

Erstad has a scar on her forehead, a scar near her left eye, a scar on her lip and a scar on her left ring finger.

Amy Sue Pagnac
Age Now: 41

Maple Grove police continue seeking answers in the disappearance of Amy Sue Pagnac.

On Aug. 5, 1989, Maple Grove-native Amy and her non-biological father Marshall Midden took a day trip to the family property in Isanti County. On the way home, Marshall stopped at the Holiday gas station in Osseo.

According to Marshall, Amy waited in the car while he went inside to use the restroom. Marshall reported upon returning to his car that Amy had disappeared. Amy has never been seen again. She was 13 years old at the time of her disappearance.

Susan Swedell
Age Now: 50

Susan Swedell went missing in her home town of Lake Elmo on Jan. 15, 1988. The 19-year-old had finished her shift at the Oak Park Heights Kmart at 9 p.m. and left in the midst of a blizzard.

On her way home, Swedell's car overheated on Stillwater Boulevard. After leaving her vehicle at a gas station, the clerk said he saw her get into another car with a man, and she hasn't been seen since.

Domanic Durham
Age Now: 16

Domanic, of Saint Paul, was last seen on Nov. 22, 2017.

The nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established by parents like John and Revé Walsh, whose 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted from a Florida shopping mall in 1981 and later found murdered.

Before the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children existed, police could enter information about stolen cars, guns and other items on the FBI’s crime database, but not stolen children. The Adam Walsh disappearance was among several tragic cases that illuminated the need for a nationwide, coordinated system to address the problem of missing children.

Others included Etan Patz, a 6-year-old who vanished from a New York street on the way to school in 1979. Over the next several years, 29 children and young adults reported as missing were found murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1982, West Des Moines, Iowa, paperboy Johnny Gosch, 12, never came home from his paper route. His disappearance remains unsolved.

Former President Ronald Reagan was an honored guest when the NCMEC opened its doors in 1984. A year earlier, he had proclaimed every May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day.

Since then, the Department of Justice has annually commemorated National Missing Children’s Day with a ceremony honoring heroic and exemplary efforts of agencies, organizations and individuals to protect children, and to coordinate efforts to reunite missing children with their families.

The problem of missing children is particularly acute in California, which accounts for nearly half of the missing children cases documented on the Polly Klaas Foundation website.

The states with the most missing children reports since 1994 are:

• California: 4,541
• Texas: 489
• Florida: 364
• Arizona: 246
• New York: 223
• Washington: 218
• Ohio: 209
• Colorado: 183
• Illinois: 177
• Georgia: 171
• Oregon: 153
• Pennsylvania: 153
• Nevada: 150
• Michigan: 130
• Indiana: 124

Photo by Lightspring / Shutterstock