Missing 14-Year-Old Was Likely Murdered; Why Police Didn’t Originally Think Her Case Was “Suspicious”

• Yashanee Vaughn

Tragic news: Portland Police report today that missing 14-year-old Yashanee Vaugh has likely been murdered. While they have yet to find her body and will not divulge exactly why they believe Vaughn is dead, police have arrested 16-year-old boy, Parrish Bennett, on murder charges in the case.

Vaughn’s family sharply criticized the Portland police’s handling of the case, saying the officers dropped the ball by classifying Vaughn’s disappearance as “not suspicious” when her mother, Shaquita Louis, first reported her missing on March 21. Only after Louis called the police again on March 23rd were two detectives assigned to find out what happened.

To counter that criticism (or, in their polite words, “clarify what has occurred in regard to this case”), Portland Police released a timeline of the case (pdf).

The decision to classify a disappearance as “suspicious” or “not suspicious” makes a major difference in the way a case is treated. Police spokeswoman Lt. Kelli Sheffer explains that all missing people are entered into a national missing persons database and police are alerted about all missing people, but when a juvenile’s disappearance is deemed suspicious, the case gets a dedicated officer who does not leave the case until the person is found. Search dogs are deployed and a press release goes out. “They’ll look until they find the child. And either they find ’em. Or they keep adding more resources,” says Sheffer. If a disappearance isn’t suspicious, the case doesn’t get the specifically dedicated staff, though they are reviewed by officers.

In Vaughn’s case, the officer who took her mom’s missing call didn’t think the case sounded suspicious.

“All the information is looked at to determine whether they’re at risk,” says Sheffer. “She left on her own free will and there was no information present that she couldn’t return home on her own.” Vaughn didn’t have a history of mental health issues that would have raised red flags and, additionally, she had briefly left home the year before after a family fight.

When Louis called again on March 23rd, saying her daughter was still missing, the officer on the line decided it was potentially an unusual case and two detectives got on it. It wasn’t until March 28th, ten days after she’d gone missing, that police came to believe Vaughn could be “at risk” and sent out a press release about her.

But, significantly, if initial evidence is correct, a “suspicious” classification wouldn’t have saved Vaughn’s life. While the “suspicious” tag may have led to tracking down Vaughn and her alleged killer quicker, the police report that it appears Vaughn was killed on March 19th, a day after she disappeared. Her mom, according to police records, did not report her missing until March 21st.