Suppose they are found. Also suppose that their reasons for leaving had nothing to do with any illegal activities, and they had not illegally crossed the border into Mexico, as suspected. They just suddenly took off for a very, very secret vacation in Bumblefuck, North Dakota or something. Could they be charged with a crime? If so, what crime? I mean, the FBI is using their resources to search for these guys, so it seems like that would be some sort of repercussions if they are just playing hooky. But what, exactly?
It is generally not a crime to disappear with no forwarding address. For them to be charged with a crime, there would have to be evidence of some illegal activity, and there does not appear to be any here.
Huh. So if the FBI wastes a lot of time/money and then they turn up, unscathed and shrugging, too bad for the FBI? Interesting. Thanks for the quick reply; I was having a hard time googling the question.
I read about this in the Los Angeles times. Where did the McStays go? By Scott Kraft, Los Angeles Times / May 30, 2011
The Los Angeles Times article makes it seem very mysterious. e.g. they left in a hurry, but not in a panic (two bowls of popcorn in front of the TV, half-empty popcorn bag beneath the microwave, banana and carton of eggs on the counter). No signs of violence or forced entry. They had money in the bank and talked to relatives regularly. A security camera shows two adults and two children crossing the border at San Ysidro, but the image is not good enough to identify them positively.
I can’t imagine what the scenario would be that would explain this.
I’m interested to know more about his. If I just hightail it to … somewhere … without telling anybody, and the FBI blows a lot of money and time trying to find me, and I turn up alive and well with an adult beverage in hand, am I on the hook for any money?
Did you pay your income taxes and house payment/property taxes while you were gone? Provide for your lawn to be mowed and your mail to be taken care of while you were away? They could pin you for tax evasion, potentially, or municipal violations if your house fell into disrepair.
It’s really not evasion. And municipal violations aren’t crimes. If you owed money, everybody will come after you to get paid. But if you disappeared like that voluntarily, you probably don’t have any money.
Law enforcement had no reason to become involved past the point of determining whether or not a crime was committed. If they spend time looking for people absent evidence of that, it’s their own fault.
There was a case here in Georgia several years ago where a woman disappeared on her wedding day and there was a large search and investigation. (The Runaway Bride) When she did turn up she initially claimed to have been kidnapped but later admitted to having made that up. She was charged with making false statements but apparently not for disappearing in the first place. (There were a couple of civil suits thrown around but that’s a different thing.)
There was concern at the time that police agencies may be less likely to look for missing persons because of cases like this but no real implication that she had done anything illegal simply by running off.
There’s two issues here, first is criminal and those charges will depend on the reasons you give the authorities after they catch you. The second is civil. The government can sue you in a civil court to recover the cost of searching for you.
They could sue you for those costs if they were required. The government isn’t required to keep track of where everybody is. Short of evidence of a crime, they have no justification to search for you.
I dunno if that really applies in this case. I mean, they headed off in pretty mysterious circumstances, and I believe their family asked for them to be searched for.
So in that case, I’d say that there might be a possibility that once they turned back up, legally clear and unscathed from their underground bunker in Wherethehellever Nevada, the government could go for civil proceedings to get some of their investment back.
Now, that being said, I’m pretty sure that they’re all dead somewhere in Mexico, but I’m not a very optimistic person. As far as I know, there’s no way for the government to get their money back from dead people.
As I recall from the article, their car was abandoned four days after they were last seen.
If they were trying to vanish, they would have cleaned out their bank accounts first.
And if they were just on vacation they would have left a paper trail in the four days before their car was abandoned – credit cards, atm cards, hotel records, cell phone calls.
I think they were kidnapped and murdered on the first day they went missing – either from the house, or while all of them were out in the car on a brief trip. The video of the family walking toward the Mexican border is of someone else.