Event raises awareness of missing people in Wisconsin, across country

There are about 100,000 active missing persons cases at any given time in the United States.

On Saturday, people in Brown County gathered to spread awareness about those who are missing in Wisconsin.

“There's about 200, today I was able to mark off three people as found and so it changes continuously,” said Marsha Loritz, President of Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy, Inc.

She started the annual

five years ago, after her mom, Victoria Prokopivits, went missing.

She is joined by other families whose loved ones went missing.

Laurie Ehnert’s niece,

went missing on September 23, 1998 in Green Bay, and hasn’t been heard from since.

“She had a little fender bender on her way to school, she was going to UW-Green Bay. She called her dad, had talked to him, and he was supposed to check back with her in the morning,” said Ehnert. “The next morning, it was a Thursday morning, he tried calling her; she never answered…called the school, she didn't show up for classes.”

Events like this give Laurie and her family hope the missing piece of the puzzle will one day be found.

“Anybody has any information on any one of them, you know, that might see that picture, ring a bell and you know it might help solve a case, you never know,” said Ehnert.

“If you don't know someone is missing you can't provide any information. Someone out there holds the information on these cases and it just has to cross the right path,” said Loritz.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul was in attendance highlighting another issue contributing to missing person's cases.

“We also need to make sure people are aware of the dangers of human trafficking, are aware of safe internet practices, so ultimately our communities are safer and we can hopefully prevent people from becoming missing,” said Kaul.