Mother of missing child advocates for legislation to aid missing people in Missouri

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - The mother of a missing St. Louis County boy supports legislation requiring law enforcement to report missing people in a nationwide database.

Theda Wilson, the mother of Christian Ferguson, who went missing in 2003 and is presumed to be dead, is backing legislation pre-filed by Missouri Republican lawmaker Tricia Byrnes.

The bill requires police in Missouri to enter information about missing persons in a federal database known as NAMUS. It is freely accessible for law enforcement and the public to input information about missing persons. However, its effectiveness has been hindered because not everyone utilizes it. Only 13 states are required to use it.

A St. Louis County jury found Dawan Ferguson guilty of first-degree murder in 2022, it carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the eligibility of parole. His son Christian Ferguson was reported missing in June 2003. The morning he went missing, Dawan Ferguson called police from a pay phone, claiming a carjacker drove off in his car with his son still inside. Christian Ferguson or his remains still haven’t been found.

In the years that followed, Wilson created a missing persons organization called Looking for an Angel, which helps people in the St. Louis region search for missing family members and friends.

“I’m running into a lot of people working in—working these missing person cases, where I’m finding they don’t even know that we have a missing person database,” Wilson said.

Wilson cited Billy’s Law as another piece of legislation helping in the search for missing people nationwide. The law requires the Department of Justice to set best practices and guidelines, provides training for law enforcement and connects missing persons databases for a national database called NAMUS.

Wilson added law enforcement needs to be more aggressive in getting photos of missing people. The Missouri State Highway Patrol’s website has a database of missing people, and some are missing photos.

“I started this hashtag years ago: we can’t find those we can’t see,” Wilson said.