Case 'awakened America' -- Etan Patz disappeared in May 1979

[CNN News]

More than 30 years ago, Etan Patz, 6, vanished from a Manhattan street on his way to a school bus stop. His parents never saw him again, but a movement began.

The case riveted millions. It also changed the country.

"It awakened America," Ernie Allen, president and chief executive officer of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, recently told CNN. "It was the beginning of a missing children's movement." Thursday, Pedro Hernandez, a former Manhattan stock clerk who once lived in the same neighborhood as Etan, was arrested in connection with his death.

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[Lexus]

A missing person is a person who has disappeared for usually unknown reasons. A common misconception is that a person must be absent for at least 24 hours before being legally classed as missing, but this is rarely the case; in instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly. In most common law jurisdictions a missing person can be declared dead in absentia (or "legally dead") after seven years. This time frame may be reduced in certain cases, such as deaths in major battles or mass disasters.