There’s 1,000 unsolved missing persons cases in N.J. On Saturday, police will try to bring some of them home. – NJ.com

Thousands of people go missing in the Garden State each year — but around 1,000, have not been seen in months or years, some vanishing as long ago as 1969.

Their names and faces might fade from the public sphere, but families and law enforcement don’t give up on finding them.

For a third year, New Jersey State Police will hold a missing persons event to encourage family members who have not reported a loved one’s disappearance to come forward, and to provide support for the families of the missing.

The event will take place Saturday at Rutgers University’s Newark’s Center for Law and Justice rom 1 to 5 p.m. In past years, it was held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Rowan University in Gloucester County.

Family members of the missing will have the opportunity to ask questions of law enforcement officials, as well as share their stories and even frustrations with the system. They can also connect with support groups, or register a missing person and provide DNA samples that could help police identify one of the 300 unidentified bodies they’ve recovered.

And anyone unsure about their own background, can submit DNA, which may link them to an unidentified child abduction case.

A slideshow with the faces of the missing will play, and a candlelight vigil will be held.

The move to Newark is a strategic one. A large number of the long-term missing persons cases come from Essex County, State Police Detective Sgt. Joel Trella said. Many are juveniles, and they consistently make up between 200 and 300 of the state’s cases.

But even with the high number of incidents out of Essex County, underreporting is still an issue, he said. And without cooperation and persistence from family members, cases may drop to the bottom of the list — particularly in smaller police departments without missing persons units.

“Missing persons investigations are a two-way street,” Trella said. “We do take this seriously. We want them to part of the investigation themselves.”

People might fail to report for a number of reasons, Trella said. Maybe their immigration status is in question, or they have a criminal past themselves. Others, whose loved ones are homeless or struggling with addiction or recurring runaways, might not know a person with an unstable lifestyle can qualify as a missing person.

Trella said he wants to see those barriers knocked down, and said none of those circumstances should impede a missing persons investigation.

“We’re trying to have an event that is on a different level than a police interaction,” he said.

The event has already seen a few successes. Last year, it prompted a woman to report her brother missing. He suffered from mental illness and lived on the street, and she had not seen him in five years, Trella said. Six months after the report was filed, he was found alive in a hospital, not sure of his own identity.

Society might still discriminate against the mentally ill, the poor, those struggling with drug abuse, but the missing persons unit does not, Trella said.

“Stories like that, you can’t put a price, or a headline, or a stat on that,” he said.

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.