Now i'm not here to tell you what to believe to be honest. I don't even know what i believe myself. As i said when it comes to eighteen pates there are lots of questions that remain unanswered. But that's the thing about unsolved missing person cases that everyone talks about the open ended nece. Why ataur why did the media chose him. Press connections nice photos. A slow news cycle. Lock his age his skin colour the fear historian installs fear cells and on. Its face. a ton story is terrifyingly simple and innocent child leaves for school and is never seen again. It really feels like he just vanished into thin air. What i can tell you is. I chose a ton story because of the role the media plays i know firsthand. How important getting a story out there can be in a missing person case. The attention payed avon's case brought about so much good but it also exploited a families trauma in threatened to tear them apart more than three decades after eight tonnes disappearance pizzas were hanging signs on their front door begging to be left alone and on a larger scale the coverage avon's case received effectively shattered an entire countries trust for millions of americans carrying about what happened. A ton meant that the same thing could happen to any child anywhere at any time. The words stranger danger suddenly entered the american lexicon. Neighbors locked their doors. The beginning of helicopter parenting took root but children didn't start going missing in nineteen seventy nine. The country just started to care for me the story of eighteen pates is a reminder that how i tell the stories of the missing matters because at the center of all of them are real. People from all walks of life dropped in impossible circumstances. They deserve their stories to be told with nuance and empathy. They rarely have clean endings. But no two cases can be considered the same and if we keep talking about them. The.