Two Young Children Found Safe Within Hours of a Missouri AMBER Alert

Some of the stories I cover on this site do not have happy endings. This one does, and I want to share it, because it shows what can happen when police, families and an entire region move quickly for children who need help.

Early on Tuesday, October 13, two young children who had been taken from their foster home in north St. Louis County were found safe within a few hours. The facts below come from the North County Police Cooperative and from reporting by First Alert 4 (KMOV) and Spectrum News in St. Louis.

What Police Say Happened

According to the North County Police Cooperative, officers were called around 11 p.m. on Monday, October 12, to the 6900 block of Greenway Avenue in Beverly Hills, Missouri. The report was that two children had been taken from their foster home.

The children are ages 2 and 6. Police said they were taken by their noncustodial mother and a male companion. The Missouri State Highway Patrol issued an AMBER Alert for the suspected vehicle in the early hours of Tuesday.

Court records cited by First Alert 4 say the children were moved for several hours between a home in the city of St. Louis and a hotel in Berkeley, and that they were left with other people during that time.

Found Safe Before Dawn

Around 2 a.m., police found both children near the hotel in Berkeley. Officers placed them in protective custody, and medical personnel evaluated them. Spectrum News reported that EMS treated the children at the scene.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police officers located the suspect vehicle and chased three people on foot. All three were arrested near the 5900 block of Lucille Avenue in the Walnut Park West neighborhood, and the AMBER Alert was cancelled.

The North County Police Cooperative thanked the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the Overland Police Department and the Woodson Terrace Police Department for their help.

Where the Case Stands

St. Louis County prosecutors have charged the children's 24 year old mother with two counts of first degree endangering the welfare of a child, according to First Alert 4. She is being held on a $150,000 cash only bond. Court records say she lost custody of the children on October 2.

Prosecutors are still reviewing possible charges against the two other adults. A charge is an accusation, not a finding of guilt, and everyone involved is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

I am choosing not to share more about the family than police have released. These are very young children who have already been through a frightening night, and their privacy matters more than any headline.

Why I Cover These Stories

People sometimes ask me why I write about missing and endangered children alongside everything else on this site. The answer is simple. Every one of these cases is somebody's whole world, and attention is one of the few things ordinary people can give that truly helps.

AMBER Alerts exist for nights like this one. The program began in Texas in 1996 after the abduction and murder of 9 year old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, and the name also stands for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. Today those alerts reach highway signs, radio, television and the phones in our pockets.

When an alert sounds on your phone at an inconvenient hour, I hope you will read it instead of swiping it away. Look at the vehicle description. Glance at the cars around you. A few seconds of attention from enough people can change how a night ends.

How You Can Help

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the North County Police Cooperative at 314-499-6093 or email detective@northcountypolice.com.

If you ever have information about any missing child, call 911 first if a child is in immediate danger. You can also reach the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 24 hours a day at 1 800 THE LOST (1-800-843-5678) or online at missingkids.org.

Today, two little ones are safe. Let us keep paying attention, keep sharing official alerts, and keep standing up for every child who has not come home yet.

Oakland Cold Case: DNA Restores the Name of Joanie Burdick, Killed in 1969

For more than half a century, a teenage girl killed in an Oakland hotel room had no name in the official record. She was simply Jane Doe. This month, that finally changed.

On October 1, Oakland Police Chief James Beere announced that the victim has been identified as Joanne Yvonne Burdick, known to her family as Joanie. She was 16 years old when she died in 1969. Her killing has never been solved, and investigators say the case remains active.

What Happened on October 2, 1969

According to the Oakland Police Department, as reported by CBS News Bay Area, officers responded on the afternoon of October 2, 1969, to the former Hotel St. Louis on 7th Street. The hotel stood about a block from police headquarters. Inside one of the rooms, officers found a young woman who had died.

Witnesses and hotel staff told police they saw her enter the room with a man shortly after 2:45 p.m. Less than 30 minutes later, employees heard a scream. The man was gone by the time officers arrived. An autopsy determined that she had been strangled.

She carried no identification. Despite the efforts of investigators over the years, no one was able to say who she was. Forensic Magazine reports that she had been listed as a missing person in California at the time, likely a teen who had run away from home.

How DNA Gave Joanie Her Name Back

The breakthrough came from a partnership between Oakland cold case investigators and the FBI. The FBI San Francisco field office formally joined the renewed investigation in 2020, bringing forensic analysis, genealogical expertise and laboratory support.

Investigative genetic genealogy pointed detectives toward a living relative. According to police, that relative was Joanie's brother, who voluntarily provided a DNA sample. The comparison confirmed that the Jane Doe from 1969 was his sister.

An FBI statement shared with reporters said modern forensic tools made it possible to revisit evidence that could not be fully analyzed decades ago. It is a reminder that a case can sit quiet for years and still move forward when science catches up.

A Family Finally Gets an Answer

Chief Beere spoke plainly about what the identification can and cannot do. "We recognize that no investigation can change what happened to Joanie," he said, as quoted by CBS News Bay Area. "We hope today's announcement will provide answers to her family and we continue to pursue justice 57 years later."

Her family released a statement of their own. "Thank you to every single individual who worked on this case, past and present, for caring enough to give Joanne her name and to give her family closure," the Burdick family said.

That word, closure, matters. For decades a family did not know where Joanie had gone, and investigators did not know who she was. Those two halves of the same story were finally joined.

The Search for Answers Continues

Police say the original investigation identified a man named Taylor Morris Teaford as a potential suspect after a witness identification. According to Forensic Magazine and local reporting, Teaford was formally charged with murder in 1972 in connection with the hotel killing, even though the victim had not yet been identified.

Teaford was already a fugitive at the time and was once on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Reports say he was never arrested, and no court has ever ruled on the charge. Chief Beere has said investigators still do not know where he is or whether he is alive, and that new searches and technology will be used to try to find out.

Authorities have also linked him as a person of interest in two other unsolved 1969 deaths of women in the East Bay. Those cases also remain open.

How You Can Help

Cold cases are often solved because one person remembers one detail. If you have any information about the death of Joanie Burdick or about the case, Oakland police ask you to contact the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section at 510-238-3821 or the Homicide Tip Line at 510-238-7950.

Unsolved murders and missing young people are causes that matter deeply to me. Joanie was a child who needed help, and for 57 years she did not even have her name. Please share her story, keep her name in the conversation, and if you know something, make the call.

Why I Protect My Morning Hours Before the World Starts Asking

I protect my morning hours the way some people protect a meeting with a major client. That sounds dramatic until you count what those hours produce. Before the world starts asking, I can think. After it starts asking, I mostly react.

My day fills fast. Show notes. Magazine decisions. Music details. Messages that feel urgent whether they are or not. If I give the first part of the morning to other people, I spend the rest of the day chasing my own priorities. So I keep a short block that belongs to me first.

Quiet Time Is Not Laziness

Some people treat early quiet as a luxury. I treat it as infrastructure. The work that needs judgment rarely thrives in a noisy inbox. Strategy, writing, creative direction and hard calls all need a clear head.

When I open messages first, my brain borrows other people priorities. A small request can look huge because it arrived with a ping. A real priority can look optional because it arrived with silence. Starting in quiet helps me rank the day before the noise ranks it for me.

I do not need a perfect sunrise ritual. I need a locked window. Phone on the side. One page of priorities. One block of deep work. That is enough to change the tone of everything that follows.

What Those Hours Are For

I use protected mornings for the work that compounds. Drafting an article. Mapping a pitch. Reviewing a cut. Thinking through a business choice that will affect weeks of work. These tasks suffer when they get squeezed between calls.

Reactive work can wait an hour. Most messages will still be there. Most meetings are already on the calendar. The deep work will not wait politely. If I skip it in the morning, it often never appears later.

I also use that time to decide what I will not do. Saying no is easier when I am calm. When I am already behind, I say yes too fast and pay for it all week.

A Simple Boundary That People Can Respect

Protection only works if other people can see the boundary. I keep the first stretch of the morning free of optional calls. My team knows that early messages get a reply later unless something is truly on fire.

Truly on fire is rare. Most things feel urgent because someone wants relief now. A clear boundary teaches the room that thoughtful answers beat instant ones. It also trains me not to perform availability as a personality trait.

I still stay reachable for real emergencies. The difference is that I define emergency by impact, not by volume. That distinction keeps the morning useful instead of sacred for its own sake.

What Happens When I Skip It

On days I skip the morning block, I feel it by noon. My attention is thinner. My decisions are shorter. I finish more tasks and still feel behind because the important ones never got a clean start.

Those days also create more cleanup. A rushed note needs a second note. A half thought pitch needs a rewrite. A hurried call creates confusion that takes longer to fix than a careful first conversation would have.

Protecting the morning is not about comfort. It is about reducing expensive mistakes. Clarity early is cheaper than repair later.

Keep the First Ask for Yourself

If your mornings already belong to everyone else, take one hour back. Put it on the calendar like a real appointment. Use it for the work that needs your best judgment. Then open the door to the world.

You will still answer people. You will still move projects. You will just do it from a steadier place. That is why I protect my morning hours before the world starts asking, and why I keep defending that habit when the week tries to steal it.