Someone Must Know: The Search for Missing People and Lost Identities

As Dave’s book Someone Must Know: The Search for Missing People and Lost Identities is published, we want to take a moment - on behalf of every volunteer at Locate International - to say something very simple:

Thank you, and congratulations.

This book is the result of decades of work, experience, and unwavering commitment to those who go missing and those who are left behind searching for answers. But it is also, in many ways, a reflection of something bigger than any one person - the collective effort of everyone who has helped build Locate International from the very beginning.

It’s hard to overstate how much of Locate has been shaped by Dave’s belief that these cases matter and that people shouldn’t be forgotten just because time has passed. But what often gets missed is that this has never been a one-person effort. Locate has always been built by volunteers giving their time around work, families and everything else life throws at them, because they care about the same thing.

It also feels important to acknowledge the early days in full. Locate started because Dave and Neil Smith decided to try and do something differently. There wasn’t a blueprint for it, and it definitely didn’t feel like a finished idea at the time. We were just trying to see if something like this could work.

And it only did because people like Dr Maureen Taylor and Dr Chung Pham gave their time, expertise and support when none of this was really established yet. That kind of early belief matters more than people probably realise.

The book itself brings together a lot of what we see in our work - the fragments of information, the long gaps in time, the persistence it takes to keep going when answers are hard to find. But underneath all of that, it’s really about people. The missing, the unidentified, and the families who never stop looking for them.

We’re also really proud that all author proceeds from Someone Must Know are being donated to Locate International. That means every copy directly supports the work - from volunteer investigations to appeals and the ongoing effort to bring answers to families.

Today feels like the perfect moment to say thank you to Dave. For starting Locate with Neil, for building something that people have been able to join and believe in. And for continuing to care so deeply about work that is often very hard, but always important.

And thank you as well to every volunteer who has been part of this so far. This book might have one name on the cover, but the work behind it has many more.

We’ll keep going.