What is done about a person who leaves everything behind and disappears?

I think it all depends who is looking and what the person has left behind. I think it is usually relatives that push hardest to find a missing person. They might hire a private detective or do a lot of searching themselves.

I think neighbors might report a neighbor missing, and the police might show up, and then they might notify any kin they could find out about. Unless there’s evidence of foul play, I don’t think the police push it. It’s up to others to push a search.

This would be true whether the person is homeless or homed. Only those who were interested would look. Homeless people sometimes do and sometimes don’t have contacts with family or others who care. Some are drifters and when they die, nobody may notice. But even alive, they could drift from town to town, and people will have lost touch with them a long time ago, and will not try to search because they’ve given up.

Others who might push a search are those who the disappeared person owes money to. A bank might contact the police, if the person owes enough money, to get a fraud investigation going. But mostly I think banks just turn these things over to collection agencies and they really don’t care about the person; just about recovering whatever they can. If there’s a house, they might foreclose on it and then resell it.

But really, only people who are interested will pursue it. That may or may not include family or friends. But I don’t think the police involve themselves unless there is suspicion or evidence of foul play.

Too many variables here. A lot would depend on the person’s family. IF they had a spouse, children, parents etc. Someone would file a missing person report. IRS, Social Security, employer, all places who would have someone looking at records and making dispositions according to protocols.

@wundayatta Really? O_o So if someone just walks off, and no foul play is suspected, then unless the family or friends push, the police won’t do much? I thought they would. :/

I don’t think it matters where you go in the world, police departments are busy and often operate with limited resources. While individual officers might want to keep looking for ‘lost’ people if there is no pressure from family, friends or other agencies who have some reason to want that person found, I would think the formal hunt will be called off fairly quickly. This would be especially true if the person was an adult and there was no evidence of foul play. There is so much crime that the search for a missing person would be overtaken by other events and demands on time and staff.

I was just thinking about how invisible some people are too. They are there going about their business but not really interacting with others in any serious way. Would they even be missed? I have read about people who have been found dead at their desks after hours/days have passed or old people who have been found months after they died and nobody noticed they were missing. Then you have homeless people and the visible ‘lost’ in society. Who will notice they are missing and if they do, unless they are able to attract attention themselves, will anybody care and take enough notice to push for someone to look and look harder.

As to collecting taxes and the like – again, government departments are dealing with millions of people. I doubt they would notice if someone dropped off and vanished from the radar. Sad really isn’t it? Good question too @Symbeline.

@Symbeline Well…if no one else is concerned, the police won’t be….

How do people convince the police to keep looking for a missing person then?

They keep on their backs. Keep phoning, keep writing, keep getting in their faces. Get media attention. Go above the local police officers. The more in-their-face you are, the more pressure there will be to make ‘you’ go away. And the only way you will go away is if they find some information about the ‘lost’ person you are missing. In the end though, if the leads run dry… what can they do?

I think some cases catch the attention and hearts of the public too though. Children do this especially. We don’t want lost children to remain out there missing. Older people though… look at missing person lists. People can be missing for years and years and eventually they are forgotten by all but their families and the police officers who searched for them.

Having money would help a lot. Money to pay for private detectives and to put pressure on people with power.

Money can be a factor, media exposure sometimes helps. Some are able to apply political pressure. Also good leads can help. But caseloads are also a factor for police and when a case runs out of leads there isn’t a whole lot else they can do. That’s why there are so many “cold” cases. It isn’t only with missing persons but murders as well. Sometimes they just don’t get solved.

The police are spread too thin to cover all the crime they have to deal with. If the person gets rid of all the numbers and accounts tied to them, they could establish a new ID. After so many years the family can petition the court to declare them dead and it’s over.

A lot of it seems to revolve around money…if a celebrity is missing, they most likely will be found. But Mr Normal, I guess not. I really did think more effort would be put in finding missing peeps. That’s messed up, that even if you owe money, someone else will take care of it, or you just fly off the radar.

Even murders. Man, what a world lol.

@Adirondackwannabe Yeah, good point. So much immediate stuff to take care of, not enough staff…reminds me of the healthcare system. XD

@Symbeline Holy crap. What an ironic statement on our political system and our spending priorities. The groups that keep us safe and the groups that keep us healthy get the scraps of the financing.

I think it all depends if there is evidence of foul play. Like a blood trail, or if the person suddenly disappeared as they were headed somewhere. I recently heard a story of a person who had called a friend and was headed over when she disappeared. The friend said she sounded very happy and was headed over to tell her some good news. They found her car a few days later I think.
So needless to say they thought it was foul play. Now an adult just leaving without any word will often be thought to just have left on their own and usually there is no hurry to look for them since we are all given freedom to disappear if we want too as adults. Usually after 16 years of age, they just consider most people run aways, unless there is something in their character to say different.
Oh, the women above I believe was found in an abandon well or something like that, not to far from her home.

@Adirondackwannabe Yeah…but tobacco companies and whatever new trend comes up makes millions. :/

@Symbeline you asked “How do people convince the police to keep looking for a missing person then?” and the answer is in the question. People have to stay after them. If no one cares, if no one stays after them, they’ll let it drop.

My nephew pulled a move like this. He left the door to his apartment wide open and just vanished. He was depressed at the time. The family frantically made calls everywhere we could and eventually discovered that he had hopped a Greyhound to Vancouver. We pressed the police to take him off the bus in Chilliwack where he was hospitalized.

We were already on our way down to Vancouver when all this happened. I went out to see him in the hospital and he cursed me out and was shaking with rage.

I think we’d do it all over again if we needed to…just to make sure who ever it was was ok.

If the person is an adult and has not committed a crime, nothing is done.

I’ve always wondered this too, I know that my immediate family would make a push for trying to find me, but no one else would. Knowing my family though, they’d give up searching within a year and there are many places relatively local that they would not even bother pressing the police and whatnot to search. One day…

@YARNLADY is right. This is why there are private detective and mercenaries for hire. There are even agencies which do nothing but kidnap people from cults.

I think it’s oddly comforting to know that it’s possible to just slip off life as you know it, and disappear into the crowd. You could become someone entirely different.

After a certain number of years (in the States it is 7), people can be legally declared dead.

There was a case like this here in Memphis back in 1994. John Cheek, a successful businessman, who was due to make millions after wrapping up a business deal, suddenly went missing. His car was eventually found parked on the bridge that spans the Mississippi River between Memphis and Arkansas. The first assumption, of course, was that he jumped off of the bridge. A body never turned up, and later, there were potential sightings reported almost 1000 miles away by strangers. At this point, it was suspected that John might be suffering from a form of amnesia called “a fugue state” that is typically brought on by a case of extreme stress.

As for what keeps the search ongoing until solved, it comes down to a lot of people communicating with each other. When someone goes missing, the detectives have to start from Square One to build a profile of their life in order to get to the bigger picture, and hopefully, the truth. It also doesn’t hurt to have a fleet of community members involved to get the word out. In John’s case, old college buddies took on the task of heading posting fliers in the area where he was possibly spotted.

So, what happens after the person doesn’t resurface? It’s a painful process for the family and close friends. In the case of John Cheek, the guy lived alone, so eventually his belongings needed to be packed up and moved out of his apartment. His workload needed to be taken on by co-workers. From what I’ve read, it’s a painful mental process, as it feels like a step closer to giving up hope that the person will turn up.

And the homeless? Unfortunately, they don’t leave as many clues to go on, especially if they no longer have contact with their family, A guess would be that their files go into cold case storage more quickly and only get pulled out when there is a potential match to human remains found.

If a person is healthy and sane and capable of making his own decisions, and stays within the law, and this person wants to leave his old life completely behind, are we right to pursue him?

(I mean “her” as much as “him” here: it could be either one.)

I knew someone who did this. He worked for one of the pioneering high-tech companies back in the seventies. One day his coworkers came into the office and found a single red rose on his desk. He’d vanished from his home, his work, and his life without a single word to anyone and without leaving any other clue. The rose seemed to say that this was a deliberate and benign choice.

The police looked into it for a period of weeks and then apparently dropped it. He hadn’t done anything wrong, he didn’t owe anyone money, and there was no reason to think he’d come to harm.

I think many people fantasize about disappearing and making a clean start, even if few go through with it. It’s pretty hard to do. Anyone who pulls it off must have planned it very thoroughly and been very determined. Do we have a right to hunt them down and drag them back so that someone else can stop wondering about them? I don’t know.

Good point @Jeruba. I agree, there may be many reasons a person disappears and it may be their wish to vanish and then, no, I don’t think we have the right to pursue them and force them to live a life they would rather abandon.

Let’s ask Chevy Chase, where the fuck are you fella?

Morality aspect from whether or not one can/should force someone to live a life they no longer want aside, judging from what I learned in this question, I don’t even think you could force them. I’m of the mind that just about every working person is always owing some money to the government, but I guess if it’s not some ridiculously huge amount, as mentioned already, it’s still taken care of, even without the person involved.
And thanks for the answers yall.

I sometimes fantasize about leaving everything behind; but to travel the world as a hobo, and not to rebuild my life and become a new person. In fact, having ties and friends would help, in case I get in some kind of jam.

Hmmmm…this has been one of my fantasies, that tree house in Costa Rica or disappearing in Asia. I’d think the best option would be to leave the country ( whatever your country is ) and disappear in some obscure location. Eventually “they” would give up and you would probably be declared legally dead within a decade or less. Poof without a trace. ;-)

How the hell do people who do that even form a new identity though? I mean, you can’t get bank accounts, jobs, leases or anything without personal info, or a birth certificate. Unless you get it forged I guess. Might depend what country you go to, I guess.

@Symbeline Yes, well, details are usually not part of fantasies. lol You could just go join some bizarre tribe somewhere. As long as they are not headhunters and make some form of palatable alcohol, it might not be too bad. A little hut in the jungle. I’ve always wanted to become an expert at blow darts. hahaha

I recall a chapter in a fascinating book about spies that explained how to do this.

I think it is legal to use aliases in the US, so long as you are not trying to defraud anyone.

@wundayatta Ya know..I can see checks printed with your ass avatar design and the name
“wundayatta”....Wun D’atta . lololol

Butt dat ass, yo.

People have a right to disappear and break contact. Unless there is reason to suspect foul play, the authorities will not investigate. It’s a matter of privacy and if someone appears to have chosen to take their life in a different direction the authorities will respect that.
If they owe money then the people whom they owe might track them down when they try to use credit, but if they live off the grid they will be hard to track down even for creditors.

What does living off the grid mean?

@Symbeline It means yurts, teepees, cabins, in remote areas without power, phone service, internet, and being self sufficient. Opting out of the mainstream and living in obscurity in an obscure location. There’s a 40 acre gold claim for sale in my hills right now, waaay off the grid, but not far enough to be untraceable. When you bring that gold to town they’ll get’cha. lol

There’s a lot of people in the world, but the world is still a big place…I bet if someone goes off to live in some way off mountain in China, nobody could find them. Hell, there’s enough woodland and other inhabited places here in Québec that one could probably do it here. I wonder if there are. That would be messed up, go traveling really far, and find a colony of people living in teepees and stuff.

@Symbeline I fell in love with the mountains of Taiwan a few years ago. You could hide out forever in some little grove of banana trees and cavort with cobras and bamboo vipers. lol

lmfao XD Sounds like paradise. :D

Yep, a return to the garden with lots of serpents. ;-p

@Symbeline , it can also mean working under the table, living with others who have rent and utilities in their name, never doing anything that might cause someone to run your credit report.

“Say someone just gets fed up with everything, and one morning, they just walk down the street, and are never seen again. Friends, family or coworkers have no idea what happened.
Let’s assume that wherever they are, or that if they died, the person/body is never found.”

You should watch Into The Wild.

What’s it about?

It’s about a man who does exactly what your asking, but he does it voluntarily.