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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- February 9, 1989, University of Florida student Tiffany Sessions told her roommate she was going for a walk. No one has seen her since.
February 10, 2005, Mark Degner and Bryan Hayes walked away from Paxon Middle School. They were never seen again.
And February 10, 2009, little Haleigh Cummings was reported missing from her Putnam County home.
All of them disappeared without a trace. There are few leads, few clues, and little hope.
This week, their families will relive that nightmare.
"The most horrible, the most traumatic case that we could work is a missing persons case, especially when it's a child," said Ann Dugger. As executive director of the Justice Coalition, Dugger knows all too well what the families of the missing children are going through. She helps them keep their cases from going cold.
"At this anniversary time, what happens, your mind starts flooding with those memories all over again," she said.
She says, too often, the families of missing children turn the blame on themselves. "It must be one of the worst nightmares that you could ever go through," said the victims rights advocate. "You start thinking it's cold out at nighttime, are they cold? Are they hungry? Are they being abused?"
She says the best thing these families can do is to make sure their children aren't forgotten. They need to keep Tiffany, Mark, Bryan, and Haleigh's face fresh in people's minds. And most importantly, they must never give up hope. "I believe there is hope. Don't give up. You can never give up."
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