‘This is becoming an epidemic’: The nightmare reality behind America’s missing children that experts say is only getting worse

The crisis of missing children in America is getting worse, according to experts working to solve this ongoing problem. The FBI‘s National Crime Information Center reports over 25,500 children are missing, with 2,300 new cases added recently. That means one child goes missing every 40 seconds.

According to The Sun, law enforcement recovered 43 missing children during a two-week operation in northern Florida last month. Operation Northern Lights brought together dozens of agencies and focused on high-risk children based on their age, how long they’d been missing, or suspected exploitation. However, this is just a small part of a much bigger problem.

Callahan Walsh, son of America’s Most Wanted star John Walsh, and the non-profit group We Are The Essentials have revealed the terrible reality facing thousands of families across the United States. Amanda and her partner Billy Lane say the number of texts, calls, and emails they get every day is alarming.

The growing threat is hiding behind computer screens

“So many of these missing runaways are being groomed, trafficked, and end up murdered, and this is becoming an epidemic,” Amanda told The U.S. Sun. “I am terrified for our children and my grandchildren.” The Walsh family’s mission began tragically in 1981 at a Sears store in Fort Lauderdale. John’s wife Revé left their son Adam in the toy aisle for a moment. When she returned, he was gone.

Two weeks later, police found Adam’s severed head in a canal 120 miles away. Serial killer Ottis Toole confessed, then took back his confession, and later died in prison. In 2008, police officially closed the case and named him as the killer. The Walshes refused to let grief stop them. John built a national movement through his show America’s Most Wanted.

“These are dark issues. I still get emotional about the cases we handle, but when we catch someone or recover a child, it’s the best feeling,” Callahan told The U.S. Sun. Decades later, John’s mission continues with Callahan beside him. However, new dangers have appeared in recent years, including major tech companies’ ongoing security failures that expose users’ personal information. Families have filed lawsuits claiming the popular kids’ online game Roblox cares more about profit than keeping players safe.

The U.S. Sun spoke to the family of an 11-year-old girl who was one of Roblox‘s 380 million monthly users. She was groomed by a predator before being sexually abused. “This is countless arrests, law enforcement investigations into sexual predation, the abuse, the grooming, the exploitation of minors. They knew this, they did nothing about it, because they didn’t care,” attorney Matt Dolman said.

The offender, Anthony Borgesano, was 20 years old when he posed as a 15-year-old in April 2022. He was jailed for 20 years. Roblox has rejected the allegations, saying it would never knowingly put users at risk. In November, a Los Angeles County woman claimed in a lawsuit that her daughter met a predator on the game who convinced her to send explicit photos through the app Discord. Both companies are being sued.

Parents also face challenges monitoring their children’s social media use, where dangerous TikTok trends continue causing concern among safety experts. “The problem is that many parents are too busy with their own lives to care,” Billy added. “These kids gravitate toward predators because those predators sit online and pay them the attention and compliments they are missing at home.”