Newspaper Finds 9 ‘Missing’ Florida Kids

Using law enforcement profiles, public records and interviews with relatives, a newspaper found nine children that had been declared missing by Florida’s beleaguered child welfare agency.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel examined 24 cases involving Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade county children primarily younger than 14 whose profiles were available through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Although the newspaper did not have access to detailed Department of Children & Families files, it found more than one-third of the children in four weeks--two in less than three hours, it reported Sunday.

The state’s child welfare agency has been under scrutiny since officials acknowledged in April that it had lost track of 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, who had been missing since January 2001.

No caseworker checked on her for 15 months. She is still missing.

As of last month, the department could not account for 532 children it said had run away from foster homes or had been abducted by parents against court orders.

The Sun-Sentinel said it was possible--and in a few cases easy--to locate some of the youngsters, including these instances:

* Two sisters missing since 1997 have been living in Wisconsin with their mother, whose phone number is listed in directory assistance.

* Four Miami brothers listed as missing since January have been routinely seen in their neighborhood, a mile from state offices.

* A boy reported missing in February was found with his mother in Miami.

* A boy who the state has been unable to find for almost eight years was located in the Dominican Republic with calls to two relatives and a friend.

Department of Children & Families administrators said they do look for missing children.

“I believe we treat [the cases] seriously enough, but it’s apparent there are efforts that we haven’t made or could be making,” said Mary Allegretti, the department’s deputy district administrator in Broward County.

The agency’s limited resources make searching for children difficult, said Jack Moss, a department official in Broward County.

Agency officials in Tallahassee and Miami did not return phone calls seeking comment Sunday.

An agency statement given to the Sun-Sentinel on Friday said it already knew the locations of four children tracked by the newspaper.