Sharing images of underage kidnap victims with the press
I'm not entirely sure how to look for this.
I'm writing a story, where the bad guy has kidnapped teenagers and kept them captive at his home. At the time of the story, three of his captives are still underage, while two are of age, but are mentally damaged to the point that they wouldn't be able to make choices of their own.
Would the police allow their pictures to be shared with the press in order to try and find their families and identify them? Thinking the victims have no criminal records, so their fingerprints wouldn't be on file, and since the kidnapper has taken them across state lines and the police have no idea when they were taken, it'd be hard to find them just by going through missing person files.
I'm writing a story, where the bad guy has kidnapped teenagers and kept them captive at his home. At the time of the story, three of his captives are still underage, while two are of age, but are mentally damaged to the point that they wouldn't be able to make choices of their own.
Would the police allow their pictures to be shared with the press in order to try and find their families and identify them? Thinking the victims have no criminal records, so their fingerprints wouldn't be on file, and since the kidnapper has taken them across state lines and the police have no idea when they were taken, it'd be hard to find them just by going through missing person files.