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compassionate he was, how caring. And brother Chris, people said, was such a nice guy. Who didn’t love them both?
    Unemployed and down, Chris battled depression rooted in his self-perceived failure to go with his brother to pick up his car. He blamed himself for Matt’s death, and it continued to eat at him, growing worse when he lost his job and had nothing but time on his hands. Right or not, Chris, his father says, “took full responsibility” for what happened to Matt.
    On October 23, 2007, almost two years after Matt died, “Chris took his own life because he felt he let his brother and his family down,” according to Bill.
    Chris was twenty-seven and Bill’s only living child.
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    Having a loved one disappear brought Bill Kruziki full circle. He experienced a missing persons investigation from the viewpoint of both investigator and family member, and that mixture of professional and personal involvement did something else, too: it jolted him into recognizing the effect his cop approach to missing persons investigations had on the families of those who disappear.
    “You have no idea how devastating this is to a family. Law enforcement is the first line of help. [Family members] have no place else to go,” Bill says.
    By tradition, law enforcement is trained to share little information with those involved in a case. It is a good tactic in most investigations because there is little to be gained by disclosing leads, suspects, or other investigational information. Additionally, what investigators learn and record in their notes can often be misleading. Police play their cards close to their chests for several reasons:
    • Authorities don’t want the general public learning information that could harm, impede, or prejudice an investigation. Premature release of information can have drastic consequences, particularly if it makes its way into the media. Suspects can flee or destroy evidence, alibis can be established, and the memories of witnesses can be tainted. One famous example of a case bungled in many ways, including information leaks that sparked sensationalism and provided a springboard for rampant speculation, is the still-unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey. JonBenet, the six-year-old daughter of a prosperous Boulder, Colorado, couple, was found dead in the basement of the family home on December 26, 1997. The child had been bound with duct tape and strangled with a garrote. Other evidence discovered at the scene, including a ransom note, and information that the family was the focus of the investigation was leaked along with many other critical crime scene details. As a result of the leaks (as well as the poor handling of the investigation), intimate facts surrounding the case were made public. There is no doubt that release of this information has impeded the progress of the case.
    • Police want to avoid public speculation initiated by the news media. Press coverage played a significant role in guiding public opinion in the Ramsey case. Another example of viral press coverage took place in connection with the 2009 murder of Yale student Annie Le. In Le’s case, some media outlets ran with unsubstantiated reports that the Yale employee accused of killing her tried to conceal her body by breaking her bones in order to force it into a very small enclosure. Although investigators who were working on the Le disappearance and murder denied those stories, the situation proved painful for her family and friends. In an ultra-competitive atmosphere, media outlets race to zero in on the most titillating details. Many officers consider the feelings of family members and won’t relay those details to anyone—including the family.
    • Police want to protect the family from the needless heartache and pain that certain types of information can induce. Disappearances and the facts surrounding them can often lead police into some horrifying and very dark places. Stranger abductions of children routinely involve the