Episode 4


“You’re basically limited by your own imagination when it comes to looking for the missing person.”

Carlo Schippers


Description

How do the police, organisations and authorities work to track down a missing person? Carlo Schippers says it may be helicopters, specialist equipment, dogs, officers on horseback… you’re only limited by your own imagination when trying to find someone safely.

Carlo is a retired detective superintendent and behavioural consultant with the Dutch national police. He was instrumental in setting up the Dutch Missing Persons Bureau and in this episode he explains the decisions, resources and challenges that come into play during a missing persons investigation.

Carlo’s interest in improving missing persons investigations began when he was working on homicide investigations and it’s his goal to make sure that what starts out as missing persons cases are resolved before they go this far.

Guest

Carlo Schippers

Carlo Schippers recently retired from the Dutch National Police after a 45 year career in law enforcement. After some years as a patrol officer in downtown Amsterdam, he became a detective and joined the Amsterdam PD Homicide Unit in 1985. In 1990-1991 he was trained by the FBI in Criminal Investigative Analyses (better known by the public as criminal or psychological profiling).

Upon his return he started working as a consultant to investigators of homicides, rapes, arson, stalking and more crimes with behaviorally relevant features. In the early 1990’s, missing person and missing children cases also became part of his supporting role. Carlo was involved in setting up the first Dutch Police website for missing children, the DNA database for missing persons and unidentified remains and the AMBER Alert system in The Netherlands. For these activities he was awarded knighthood by the Dutch King in 2016.

Resources

  1. Police Investigations of Missing Persons
  2. Missing Persons Handbook of Research (Chapter 12)
  3. Handbook of Missing Persons