Nevada Child Seekers shares the importance of reaching out to police
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — A family friend who contacted San Jose police was able to help identify Liam Husted -- the boy who was found dead in a Nevada desert -- and move this case forward.
Cases like Liam's prove it's important to come forward if something doesn't seem right.
Nevada Child Seekers was created in 1985 and they work with the community to help find missing children.
In Liam's situation, they teamed up with law enforcement to help try to ID the boy.
They said the family friend speaking with the police was key.
"It's emotionally draining working a case like this, being able to have closure and identify Liam was very important," said LVMPD Lt. Ray Spencer, when talking to news outlets about the arrest made in the case on Tuesday.
It took more than a week for police to identify John "Little Zion" Doe as 7-year-old Liam Husted of San Jose, and then to arrest his mother Samantha Moreno Rodriguez.
"Now that we're able to make an arrest on this case is extremely gratifying," said Spencer.
Police received tips from around the country, and groups like Nevada Child Seekers worked around the clock with investigators to figure out who the boy was.
"We worked with the National Center and we worked with other law enforcement agencies outside of Nevada to try to determine the age demographic, you know the demographic, the ethnicity, the hair color, the eye color, to see if there was a missing child report that fit that description," said Margarita Edwards, executive director of Nevada Child Seekers.
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Samantha's friend helped link a name.
"When a friend of Samantha's noticed the sketch that had been circulating on local news network and she also knew that Samantha was missing, after observing that she then went to the San Jose Police Department and explained to them that she felt that Liam could potentially be the person in that sketch, said Spencer.
After further investigation, police found out he was.
"What she did was she just kind of connected the dots and that maybe it could be him, maybe, maybe not," said Edwards. "And that's really those are the ones that break the cases open."
Edwards says the see something say something ideology can go further than Liam's case.
It can help the hundreds currently missing.
"We have five additional cases this week and it's not just one child it's somebody's child it's, it's not a number," said Edwards.
And it can be anyone, not just family, someone who thinks something just doesn't seem right.
"A big misconception, which I've heard recently is that they have to wait 24 hours in order to file a missing child report," said Edwards. "That's actually a myth and it's not true. The second a child goes missing, you call the police."
For anyone who would like to get involved with Nevada Child Seekers you can head to http://nevadachildseekers.org/.
