Will police look for your runaway child?

Domonique Holley-Grisham, then 16, got a phone call and walked out of the house in February 2009. His brother, Antonio Holley-Grisham, hasn’t seen him since. Nor has anyone in the family. Because Domonique left of his own accord, he was considered a runaway by the police in Rochester, New York.

Around the country, a runaway classification often means officers put less effort into looking for a missing child, a Paste BN review of more than 50 police procedural manuals found. Under federal rules, runaways also are disqualified from Amber Alerts, notifications to the media and on billboards and cellphones that draw urgent, widespread attention to missing children. 

👋 Nicole Fallert here, and welcome to Your Week, our newsletter exclusively for Paste BN subscribers (that's you!). This week, we talk with Paste BN investigative reporter Gina Barton and Paste BN Network intern Madison Scott about their exclusive reporting regarding the classification of runaway cases.

But first, don't miss these stories made possible by your Paste BN subscription:

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'I just had this gut feeling'

The threads for Barton and Scott's latest story with Paste BN national correspondent Tami Abdollah have been in the works for over a year. 

"I just had this gut feeling I had to stick with it," Scott told me. "I had a feeling there was an issue with labeling missing Black children as runaways."

Scott has been reporting on Domonique's unsolved case since fall 2021 through various projects while pursuing her degree at State University of New York Brockport.

In May 2022, Barton published a story with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel crime reporter Ashley Luthern about the racial disparities in the missing person cases of Elizabeth Smart and Alexis Patterson. This reporting inspired Scott to reach out to Barton to tell her about Domonique's case and ask for advice — a phone call that ultimately lead to Scott joining the Paste BN Network as an intern.

In their reporting, Barton and Scott pursued two questions:

• Were advocates' claims true that Black children are more often categorized as runaways than missing white children?
• Do police treat runaways differently than other missing person cases?

Barton and Scott have confirmed that if people are classified as runaways, even in states where running away is not a crime, the police are likely to dedicate fewer resources to the case.

"The rules actually allow the police to do less if your child is a runaway, but that doesn't mean they're in less danger," Barton said.

• Breaking it down: What happens when a child disappears in America?

The pair spent summer 2022 filing records requests, conducting interviews and analyzing state-level data on runaway cases. They reviewed more than 50 state police procedural manuals for details on investigating missing kids — information they could not have gotten without the help of the Paste BN Network.

Scott traveled to North Carolina to meet with Domonique's mom, Mozell Jones-Grisham, and two of his brothers, wading through years of materials about their missing family member — including letters the brothers had written to him and the original 2009 police report, something she could not get from the Rochester Police Department. 

Barton and Scott are still looking for answers and will continue investigating for potential racial disparity in runaway cases.

Scott is motivated to do more reporting knowing how long Jones-Grisham has struggled to share her son's story.

"The only thing we can control is how we can make this a healing experience for the people we are writing about," Barton said. "That's really difficult even for the most seasoned of journalists. [Sources] have so much pain."

Questions? Tips? Reach out to Gina Barton at gbarton@gannett.com and Madison Scott at mdscott@gannett.com.

A missing girl, a search for truth 

The story of Alexis Patterson's disappearance started with a massive search for the little girl and sympathy for her family, but that quickly changed as her parents became suspects. Over the years, there have been conspiracy theories, false leads and cases of mistaken identity. Still, her mom has never given up hope that Alexis will come home again.  

In Season 4 of true crime podcast Unsolved, coming May 3, we work to get to the bottom of what really happened to Alexis, what efforts were made to find her and why so many missing Black kids in America are never found.

Check out the trailer for the podcast.

Thank you

The year is flying by. As you're enjoying another spring weekend, I suggest a good read — especially the subscriber-exclusive stories below. As always, see you next week.

Best wishes, 

Nicole Fallert