According to the latest analysis (2014 – 2016) by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), about 98% of missing children cases involve runaways or abduction by family members.
Over the same period, more than 3,147 children were found after having been missing for six months or longer, and as many as 151 children were recovered after missing a decade or longer.
Many disappearances are listed under the “long-term missing children cases” in which all leads have been investigated, yet the victims’ whereabouts remain unknown.
As long as the victims are still out there, dead or alive, the cases are not closed; they are only unsolved.
The disappearance of Leigh Marine Occhi is still a mystery today. She has been missing since August 27, 1992, and was only 13 years old at the time of her disappearance.
Before that unfortunate day, Leigh had never spent time alone in her house.
After her mother, Vickie Felton left for work, Leigh was with no one else, waiting for her grandmother to pick her up that morning. Vickie has never seen Leigh again since then.
10 /10 Home Alone
Heavy storms were expected that day as Hurricane Andrew moved over Tupelo, Mississippi.
The weather forecast didn’t expect anything extraordinary, so there was nothing for Vickie Felton and her daughter Leigh Occhi to be overly cautious and take any drastic action.
It was a regular workday for the mother and still a summer break for Leigh before starting her eighth grade.
She was 13 years old then. Felton left for work at 7:35 am, leaving Leigh alone in residence at 105 Honey Locust Drive.
9 /10 No One Picked Up
The Hurricane alert worried Felton about her daughter, who was alone, waiting for her grandmother to pick her up for an open house at Tupelo Middle School.
Felton called home at 8:30 am, but no one picked up the phone. She tried again and had the same result, so she went home after spending no more than an hour at work.
Felton didn’t know she was about to discover a mysterious tragedy back home. When she arrived, Leigh was nowhere to be found.