Kevin Collins, 10 years
old in 1984. 4'6" tall, 70 lbs. He has straight brown hair, gray-green
eyes, freckles, and a small horizontal scar on the front of his tongue.
Kevin is dyslexic. He was last seen on Masonic Avenue wearing a school uniform
consisting of a dark green sweater, a white dress shirt, brown corduroy
pants, and beige Nike tennis shoes. |
The story of Kevin
Collins is San Francisco's heartbreak. Kevin was last seen on February
10, 1984, waiting for the northbound No. 43 bus at the corner of Oak
Street and Masonic Avenue. His disappearance from the City's sidewalks
came at a time before Americans had adequately responded to the tragedy
of missing and exploited children. There was no Megan's Law, America's Most
Wanted, nor the many groups, toll free numbers, web sites, child I.D. kits,
and other resources that will help the parents of a child who is abducted
today. It may never be known if any of these resources would have found
Kevin or prevented his abduction. Kevin was one of nine children from a
working class family. His father, David Collins, was a truck driver and
nursing student. Kevin was a bright, well-liked 4th grader. On the day of
his disappearance, Kevin, of St. Agnes School
(755 Ashbury Street), left the school's gym at a separate facility on Page
Street between Ashbury and Masonic at or around 6 p.m. Those closest to
the boy speculate that he slipped out of the after school basketball practice
in order to catch the 43 and avoid piling in the coach's van with bigger,
perhaps more intimidating, kids. Students up to the 8th grade were participating
in the practice while Kevin's brother Gary, a 6th grader and constant companion
of Kevin's, was sick and stayed home that day. Kevin was last seen at 6:30.
In the hours and days after he failed to arrive home at 2502
Sutter Street, volunteers circulated 2000 posters in a 200-block radius
of St. Agnes. The well publicized photo of Kevin is haunting because his
vulnerability is so obvious and the reality of his vanishing so sad. Kevin
Collins would be 30 years old at this writing on the 20th anniversary of
his disappearance.
National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children |