P.I. Post: When a missing child solves their own mystery

What if…? It’s the question many writers begin with when a story nibbles away at their thoughts.

Here’s a ‘what if’ question for you…what if you discovered a profile for a missing child and the age-progressed sketch resembled you at your current age?

What would you think?

What would you do?

I’m not making this up in anticipation of drafting a new story.

Believe it or not, it’s happened.

My last post in the Nonfiction Nugget series was about finding or identifying missing or unidentified victims and how one particular website helps victims and their families find closure. I thought I’d share more details about an interesting case I read about recently. Especially after I discovered it was a case of a missing person featured on that website. The case is from 1977 and involves Charlotte Moriarty who had been living in Hawaii with her partner, Mark. Their story starts out sweet enough when they have a baby at the beginning of the year, who they named Marx.

When a loved one leaves only to never return…

Only half way through the year, the couple’s story takes an unfortunate turn. One day in June, when Marx was only six-months old, Charlotte put him in his stroller to walk to a nearby store. When they didn’t return home that day, and even when the stroller was discovered at a bus stop, Mark wasn’t immediately alarmed. He later told police Charlotte had taken off before but had always returned home. Eventually, Mark filed a missing persons report in July, but after an extensive search of the island, no trace of mother and son were found.

But baby Marx was only a short drive away…

Not long after leaving with the baby, Charlotte was arrested for breaking into someone else’s residence. Rather than provide her true name, she gave the police a false identity for both herself and her son. She was confined to a psychiatric hospital and Marx was taken into protective custody. Days later Charlotte skipped out against medical advice while also abandoning her son. The authorities had no other option but to place Marx in an orphanage, under the fake name and date of birth they had for him. Sadly, the orphanage turned out to be only a short drive from where Mark lived, who continued to wonder what happened to Charlotte and his son. A few years later, Marx was adopted by a couple from New Jersey who had been stationed in Hawaii. They named their newly adopted son Steve.

Skip ahead thirty-plus years…

Charlotte has never been found and still remains a missing person. Is she still alive? Is she still on the island? Did she begin a new life under a new name? Her story from after she left the hospital is still a mystery and any number of writers could write her story and come up with a different ending. However, baby Marx would become an adult and begin to wonder about the first few years of his life. In his mid-30’s, Marx now-known-as Steve, would begin to work on the puzzle surrounding those first years. Eventually, he’ll discover a shocking find…an age-progressed sketch of a child resembling him enough to prompt him to push further to discover the truth. One thing would lead to another and after DNA provides the final confirmation, father and son could finally be reunited.

What this type of story gives other families…

There aren’t many cases like this, but when they happen they certainly make the news. It’s an incredible story…one that would make a great book or movie. It’s a much-needed answer to a decades’ old mystery. But it’s also something else. It’s what the story gives others…which is hope. It gives other parents with missing children or those with missing family members a sliver of hope. Even if the answers to their own mystery aren’t resolved today. They have hope that some day, whether it’s a few years or decades down the road, they’ll learn the truth. And if prayers are answered, the truth won’t be as terrible as they feared.

Hope is what gets them through each day. Hope that some day, they’ll finally be reunited with their loved one. Where they will start over and spend the rest of their lives getting to know each other again.