UPDATE 3/18/2021 11:32 pm: PPD said the missing mom and baby have returned home.
The Portsmouth Police Department needs your help to find a missing teen mom and her baby son.
Police said 16-year-old Cheyenne Rowe and her one-year-old son, Mason Rowe, went missing on March 14. Cheyenne Rowe’s mother, Gloria White said she had not seen or heard from her daughter since March 14. The young mother and son left Wayne Hills around 7 pm. Cheyenne said she planned to do homework with a friend. Her mom said she never came home.
Gloria White reported her daughter missing on March 17. Cheyenne is 5’6″ tall with shoulder-length purple hair. She has piercings on her bottom lip and nose. Mason has blonde hair and blue eyes.
If you’ve spotted the pair, contact the Portsmouth Police Department at 740-353-4101.
The Missing
In 2019, 24,292 individuals went missing. That’s down 1,327 from 2018. Of that number 18,688 were children.
Locally the numbers for kids reported missing in 2019 stand at:
- Scioto County – 70
- Pike County – 32
- Adams County – 10
- Lawrence County – 32
- Jackson County -18
Keep in mind, these children aren’t all still missing. Missing children are equally divided between boys and girls – 9,606 females and 9,032 males.
Runaways and Custody Issues
In most cases, kids leave voluntarily or are taken by a parent or relative in a custody dispute. Let’s check out the numbers:
- Runaway: A child leaves home without permission and stays away overnight. 10,598 Ohio
cases - Abducted by noncustodial parent: A parent, other family member or person acting on behalf
of the parent or other family member takes, keeps or conceals a child (or children) – 29 cases in Ohio - Abducted by a stranger: Two scenarios qualify as nonfamily abductions. An abductor takes a child by force or lures them away. The number of cases in Ohio in 2019 – 2
The Good News
According to Attorney General Dave Yost, 18,246 people under the age of 21 were found safe by the end of 2019. That means 98% of kids reported missing were just fine.
- In many cases, the individuals actually weren’t missing at all. There was some type of miscommunication or a person between the ages of 18 and 21 left voluntarily.
- That is one reason that police and the media are often hesitant to report that someone is missing. The fear is that if you cry wolf too often, people won’t pay attention to where someone has truly been abducted.
- The Missing Persons Unit has a 24-hour toll-free hotline (800-325-5604) to field calls from law enforcement, parents, and community members. A database of Ohio Missing Persons is available on the attorney general’s website. If you scroll down the list, you’ll see that the vast majority of the missing are endangered runaways.
One lesson to take away from this is that if you really want to prevent missing kids, it’s probably more important to look inward as to what’s happening within your family than outwards to strangers in white panel vans looking at you funny in the Walmart parking lot.
