Kevin Andrew Collins

Parents were educated on how to better protect their children from stranger abductions, and law enforcement officials learned how to better coordinate their response to child abductions. Agnes School in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.

His family lived on 2052 Sutter Street in the city s Western Addition. On February 10, 1984 Kevin left early from basketball practice in the school s gymnasium between 6:10 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again. Prior to Amber Alerts, national TV shows (such as America s Most Wanted) and the Internet, local news and print advertisements were the only way to inform the general public of a child s disappearance.

His abduction from San Francisco city streets helped bring to light the plight of missing and exploited children in America. Collins was born in San Francisco to David and Ann Collins, a working-class family with nine children. A state department employee who was processing the paperwork remembered the Kevin Collins abduction and alerted authorities. .

This, along with the development of a 1983 television movie about the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh, helped spark nationwide interest in the plight of missing children. Following the evening of Kevin s disappearance, posters with his picture were distributed and displayed on telephone poles and storefront windows around San Francisco. In the days that passed, billboards, milk cartons, and national magazine covers showing Kevin s picture circulated nationwide as the country searched for the boy.

Thinking that the case was too old for anybody to remember, he applied using the name Kevin Andrew Collins and provided falsified documentation to obtain a passport. Witnesses reported seeing him at the bus stop talking to a tall blonde man.

His brother Gary, a sixth-grader, normally would have accompanied Kevin to basketball practice but was home sick that day. He was a fourth-grader at St.

The strain of Kevin s disappearance and the search for their son eventually led David and Ann Collins to divorce. On November 14, 2005, a purported identity thief pleaded guilty to stealing Kevin s name when applying for a passport in his name. Kevin Andrew Collins (born January 24, 1974; disappeared February 10, 1984) gained national attention as one of the first missing children to appear on milk cartons and on the cover of national publications, such as Newsweek magazine in 1984.

or 6:30 p.m. To this date, Kevin s whereabouts are unknown, and there are no new leads in the 25 year-old case.