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Did a Decade of Milk Cartons Help Solve Missing Kid Cases?
The dawning era of Stranger Danger
Milk carton photographs were the first, inventive step to fix the problem of missing American children. In retrospect, they were a sensible and practical way to get the faces of kids into American homes via the kitchen table. But did they work?
A nation mourns and takes action
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) was founded in 1984, but the problem of missing children had begun seeping into American consciousness several years earlier.
It wasn’t as if children didn’t go missing prior to 1980, but we had no way to talk about it until a couple of parents, notably John Walsh and Noreen Grosh, lost their sons.
But another case caught people’s attention like no other: the disappearance of a New York boy named Etan Patz. He lived in Manhattan, an adorable 6-year-old who vanished on his way to his school bus stop on May 25, 1979.
Etan’s body has never been found.
Over thirty years later, a man confessed to strangling Etan and was criminally prosecuted. The confession is somewhat circumspect despite the conviction, however. The convicted killer had serious mental health issues and an IQ of 70.
Etan’s dad, Stanley, was a professional photographer. In addition to heartbreaking photos of Etan on milk cartons, there were portraits of the boy all over his SoHo neighborhood. There was even a picture of Etan projected onto Times Square billboards.
The legislation to help fund NCMEC was passed in early 1984 and one of the first moves was to create a toll-free hotline where people could call in if they saw an endangered child or could help solve a missing case. John and Reve Walsh, whose son Adam was abducted and murdered in 1981, are credited as the driving forces behind establishing NCMEC.
Why milk cartons?
A parent in Des Moines, Iowa was responsible for first putting photographs on milk cartons.
In less than a year after the first milk carton appeared with images of Eugene and Johnny, just…
