The Runaways: A National Problem

"Why, I could do a better job with a troop of Boy Scouts," says Everett Wai-drop, a burly, tattooed carpenter whose sons Donald, 17, and Jerry, 15, were among the victims of Dean CorH's sex-murder orgies. Like other anguished parents, he is bitter about the failure of the Houston police to recognize that something strange had been going on in the Heights section of the city--and to do something about it. Waldrop charges that 13 boys disappeared from the same neighborhood around the same time in early 1971, but that the police were lax in searching for his sons.

"We anticipated the criticism," says Inspector H.D. Caldwell, Chief of Staff Services (which includes the Juvenile Missing Persons) for the Houston police. "Someone must be found to assume the blame." But, says Houston Police Chief Herman Short, "This kind of disgusting attempt at scapegoating compounds an already tragic incident."

In fact, Houston police records show, about 280 juveniles are reported missing every year from the Heights section, just a small fraction of the thousands of runaways reported in the city every year. David Hilligiest, believed to be one of the still-unidentified victims, has been missing--and the object of an agonizing search by his parents--for more than two years. "We're hanging on the thread that our son is still alive," says Fred Hilligiest. Of the 5,228 juveniles who took off last year, the police say, only 424, or 8%, remain unaccounted for today, despite the fact that some parents wait for days and even months before reporting that their children are missing. Many, like the parents of another victim, Marty Jones, never report them at all. For instance, Horace Lawrence, whose son Billy, 15, was one of the victims, tearfully confesses that he never alerted the police; he thought that Billy was in Austin playing in a rock band. Although runaways are not official police business in Texas (because, as in most states, there is no law against a minor's leaving home), the force maintains a round-the-clock juvenile missing-persons desk; 90 officers are available to investigate runaway cases.

Other American cities report that they too have the runaway problem under control. New York City police say they solve 95% of the 13,000 cases they process annually. Chicago dealt with 16,500 missing youths last year and solved 99.5% of the cases. Los Angeles has now cleared 90% of the 7,601 Cases reported in 1972.

Even so, the number of juvenile runaways seems to be going up across the nation. The FBI reports that 164,000 runaways were taken into custody (most are then simply returned to their parents) in 1972, compared with only 1 18,000 in 1967. (Ironically, the number of runaway cases in Houston declined almost 10% between 1971 and 1972.) Because most runaways are not reported missing, authorities estimate the U.S. total last year at 1,000,000.

Though the nature of the runaways varies from city to city, across the nation the youthful fugitives seem to have one thing in common: they are fleeing their parents. At San Francisco's Huckleberry House, which counsels under-18 runaways, Steve Lieberman, co-director of Youth Advocates, the center's sponsoring agency, says: "Most runaways leave home for a legitimate reason." Some typical reasons: beatings by brutal parents, arguments over the use of drugs, lack of freedom, and sometimes anger on the part of girls toward sexual advances by their fathers or stepfathers. Furthermore, says Lieberman, "About two-thirds of the kids come from homes where the marriage of their natural parents is not intact."

-It is for these reasons that the Looking Glass Runaway Center in Chicago attempts to steer its runaways clear of the authorities. Says Counselor Anne Fortune: "We feel it's inappropriate to report these kids, unless legally necessary, because it's usually the idea of authority that they're running away from in the first place."

But many runaway centers are facing a crisis; their federal funding will run out if Congress fails to pass the Runaway Youth Act, now under consideration. If they are forced to close, says Bruce McQuaker of the Traveler's Aid Society, which sponsors Looking Glass, "that's just one less chance for the runaway and one more chance for a Houston."

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