By Steve Huff
(Continued)
A look at Laura Mackenzie's Myspace profile when she'd been missing two weeks seemed to indicate that few of her friends were worried. Where the pages of other missing teens from the past, like Taylor Behl, had been filled with worried comments from the moment the person was reported missing, no one left a message on Laura's page between February 25, 2006, and March 30th. Then another comment was left again on the 12th of April. And the 14th, and the 27th. People close to Laura Mackenzie, who might very well know if she was on the run from the law, were starting to worry.
Her parents, even after finding out about the shoplifting charges, were ahead of everyone else. By March 18th the website www.findlaura.org had been created. The Mackenzies began to talk to the press. Laura Mackenzie's name was popping up on the internet on message boards devoted to discussions of true crime as well as the mysteries often presented by missing persons cases like Laura's. But even the "websleuths" didn't feel a great sense of urgency about tracking Laura's case. She'd been a high-achieving young woman confronted with real legal consequences for her alleged shoplifting. If Laura had never before been in any kind of trouble, was always considered by her friends and family to be a "good kid," then it made sense that she might just run.
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| Laura Mackenzie |
It didn't necessarily make sense that Laura Mackenzie would leave with no credit card, or cell phone. It didn't make any sense that none of her close friends seemed to have heard from her by the end of March.
By May 9th, 2006, Lt. Bill Barry of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Dept. was telling the New Hampshire Union Leader that police were "beginning to think something bad happened to her."
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