When someone you care about has not come home and cannot be reached, the first step is the same anywhere in Oklahoma: report it to your local police department or sheriff's office now. Everything else, whether your family does it or a private investigator does, works alongside that report.

This guide explains Oklahoma law in general terms. It is not legal advice. For advice about your situation, talk to an Oklahoma attorney.

Who do you call first when someone is missing?

If someone is missing, report it to local law enforcement first. A private investigator can work alongside that report.

Call your local police department or sheriff's office and say that you are reporting a missing person. If the missing person is a child, call 911 or the police at once.

Some families hold off because they have heard there is a waiting period, or because they are afraid of overreacting. Before you wait, read what Oklahoma's statute says. Both rules come from the 2019 act the Legislature named Francine's Law.

No Oklahoma law enforcement agency may require a delay in taking a report of a missing person when reliable information shows the person is missing, or require next of kin to appear first. 74 O.S. § 151.3(E)
There is no waiting period for a report of a missing child, and the child's name goes into the national crime database within two hours. 74 O.S. § 151.3(H)

On that first call:

Say who is missing, and when and where the person was last seen or heard from.
Say anything that makes you fear for the person's safety, such as a medical need.
Before you hang up, write down the report number and the name and number of the officer or detective.

If someone is in danger right now, call 911. Fuller Investigations is not an emergency service.

What happens after you report a missing person in Oklahoma?

What the agency does next is set out in Oklahoma's statutes.

Law enforcement sends missing person reports to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) and enters them in the national crime database. 74 O.S. § 150.12A(A)
Within 30 days of a report, the agency submits the case to NamUs, the national missing and unidentified persons system, and collects records and voluntary family DNA samples. 74 O.S. § 151.3(C)
OSBI's Office of Liaison for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons assists families with NamUs and with court cases. 74 O.S. § 150.12A-1

You can help that work along:

Ask the detective whether the case has been submitted to NamUs, and what records or samples the agency wants from the family.
Call the OSBI Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 1-800-522-8017. Its page links to the Oklahoma Missing Persons Index.
If the missing person is Indigenous, ask the detective or the clearinghouse how to reach the OSBI liaison office named above.

Adults may choose to leave, and police may treat that differently from an endangered person. If you are told the report is being handled that way, keep giving the detective whatever points to danger or to where the person might be.

What information helps find a missing person?

A search starts from details like these, whoever is doing the searching. Keep them together in one place.

The person: A recent photograph, a physical description and, if you know it, what the person was wearing.
Last seen: The date, the time and the place, and who was there.
Phone: The number and the carrier.
Vehicle: The make, model and color, and the plate number.
Online: The social media accounts the person uses, by name.
People and places: Friends, coworkers and the places the person usually goes.
Health: Any medical needs.
The report: The agency, the report number and the detective's name.

Do not hold the report back until this is complete. Report with what you know, then add to it.

What can a family do while the police investigate?

More than it may feel like, as long as it feeds the police investigation and stays out of its way.

Pick one relative to speak with the detective, so that information arrives once and in order.
Keep a log of every call, tip and possible sighting: the date, the time, who told you and how to reach that person.
Call the friends, coworkers and regular places on your list, and note what each one said.
Save public posts by or about the person, with the date and the web address of each. Posts get edited and deleted.
Give the detective each new tip when it arrives, including the ones that seem small.

Do not go by yourself to a place that worries you or confront anyone you suspect: give the detective the address or the name. Be careful with a stranger who wants money before sharing information, and tell the detective about the offer.

Whether a relative may open a missing adult's phone, email or social media accounts is a question for an attorney.

Is the person missing, or have you lost touch?

Not everyone who cannot be reached is missing. If a relative moved away years ago, the old number no longer works and nothing suggests danger, what you need is a current address.

That is a locate, also called skip tracing: a search of lawful records for where a person lives now.

If the silence is sudden or out of character, or anything points to danger, treat the person as missing and make the report.

When should you add a private investigator?

Any time after the report is made: the family of a missing adult can call one that day, or weeks later.

What an investigator adds is time on your family's leads: finding and interviewing the people who last saw or spoke with the person, canvassing where the person was last known to be, checking public records and preserving what is public online. Whoever you hire, make sure what comes of it goes to the detective.

Three points of law bear on that work:

Under Oklahoma's licensing act, private investigation includes investigations of missing persons. 59 O.S. § 1750.2(4)
Getting someone's phone records by lying to a phone company is a federal crime. 18 U.S.C. § 1039
Fuller Investigations does not obtain a missing person's call or location records.
Oklahoma's Computer Crimes Act makes it a crime to access another person's computer, account or data without authorization, or to ask someone else to. 21 O.S. § 1953
The investigator does not log into a missing person's phone, email or social media accounts.

No investigator can promise that a person will be found, and we do not. We have no access to law enforcement databases, and we work beside the police investigation, never around it. What you can ask of any investigator is a written record of each lead and what came of it.

Our page on what a missing persons investigator in Oklahoma does sets out the work and what a family receives. Once the report is made, call or text us at any hour, or book a consultation, and have the report number with you.

Someone is missing in Oklahoma: what to do first