The First 48 Hours: What Actually Matters in a Missing Person Case

You’ve probably heard it before: the first 48 hours are critical. That’s true. But not for the reasons most people think. It’s not just about speed; it’s about accuracy.

Early information shapes everything that follows.

• Establishing the timeline

• Identifying last known contact

• Preserving physical evidence

• Determining whether the situation is voluntary or not

If those pieces are wrong—or incomplete—the entire investigation shifts off course, and correcting that later is difficult--sometimes impossible.

That’s why those first hours matter.

Not because everything is solved quickly, but because everything is set in motion.

In the second of the Savannah Mysteries, a missing person's case is at the heart of the story. However, like so many missing person's cases, the evidence is unclear. In fact, I would argue that our modern understanding of a "missing person's case" implies that the person is not found and there is a good deal of confusion regarding the vanishing. We tend to treat voluntary disappearances and disappearances in which murder is strongly suspected differently.

A missing person's case is difficult because the pain associated with a disappearance is different than that of a murder or accident. The grief is not more or less; it is different. Never having answers is a particular type of horror that no one should ever have to go through.

Many people volunteer their time and effort to help search when a person goes missing. Thank you to those who do so, even if you are unable to bring closure to the families.

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I did not take lightly the fact that a missing person's case was the centerpiece of The Wormsloe Marsh. When I write about terrible subjects, I never want to forget that there are people who are living with the reality of these things rather than just a fictional version of them.

The Wormsloe Marsh is coming out at the end of this summer. I hope you will read it and enjoy it, but I also hope you will never forget that there are real families suffering through real cases every day.

🌿 Savannah Mysteries