Union County Profiles Nearly 60 Missing People This Week – Westfield, NJ Patch

UNION COUNTY, NJ — William Jamison served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971, returned home to Pennsylvania to work in hospital management, then got a job in the late 1970s with Haug Die Casting Co. in Kenilworth, NJ. On the night of March 27, 1981, he stopped into the St. George Diner in Linden, a few miles from his Roselle Park apartment. Then, he and his car, a relatively new blue Ford LTD Station Wagon, disappeared.

His sister and seven other siblings have spent 40 years looking for answers and have gotten few — even though they hired a private investigator and offered a $10,000 reward. Fifteen years ago, they were able to have the case turned over to the New Jersey State Police.

William’s parents have both passed away, but one sister keeps a blog, “Missing My Brother,” with memories and updates.

“On Dec. 25, 1981 our family celebrated our very first Christmas without you,” she wrote, “and without knowing where you were. It would be unbelievable – if not so tragic – to have thought then that 30 years later, this Dec. 25, 2011, we still would not know your whereabouts. All your family misses you and wishes you a Merry Christmas 2011.”

Jamison is one of nearly 60 missing persons cases in Union County, according to a statistic from the Union County Prosecutor’s office.

This week, Union County Prosecutor Lyndsay V. Ruotolo began start profiling the nearly 60 people currently missing from Union County on social media, in hope that someone will offer new clues.

The first was Jesse Sellers of Plainfield, who’d now be 71.

“To begin our Missing Persons Initiative, UCPO is sharing information on Mr. Jessie Sellers Jr. Last seen in Plainfield on Sept 3 2015, anyone with information is urged to contact the Plainfield PD at (908)753-3360,” tweeted the office.

Of the tens of thousands of missing persons cases across the country, some are recent and some are decades old. But they do have one thing in common.

“It is important to remember that these missing persons are not just someone’s family or friend, they are valued members of our community,” said Ruotolo in a press release. “Even if you are not personally connected to one of the missing, every share and retweet brings us one step closer to reaching someone who may know something.”

She noted, “Undertaking this initiative … lets [family members] know that their loved ones have not been forgotten by law enforcement and members of the community. “

The office said that each week, information and photos relating to a missing Union County person will be shared on two social media platforms, @UCPONJ on twitter and UCPONJ on LinkedIn. Contact information for relevant law enforcement will also be shared in hopes of getting tips.

Using social media to publicize older missing persons cases is a relatively new tactic that has been used with increasing frequency by law enforcement agencies around the country and in Canada.

Interested parties also can look at some of the missing persons in New Jersey via this state database, which can be searched by county, gender, and other categories. However, it only covers some of the active cases.

One is a case of a 2-year-old boy, Curtis McCoy, swiped from Newark 25 years ago while he was simply walking on a shopping trip with his family. “As the group approached an intersection, Curtis’s father reached back to take his son’s hand to cross the street, but Curtis was gone,” says the site.

Closer to home, in Union County, prosecutors are still looking for Kevin Barthrop, a toddler who disappeared from Elizabeth in 1999. They believe people in Union and Essex counties may have information about what happened to him.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children constantly updates its webpage here and posts current Amber alerts at the top of its search page here.