From your first link: Nearly 200,000 Americans over age 18 were recorded missing by law enforcement in 2007, but they represent only a fraction of the intentio

From your first link: Nearly 200,000 Americans over age 18 were recorded missing by law enforcement in 2007, but they represent only a fraction of the intentional missing: Many aren’t reported unless they are believed to be in danger. And according to a 2003 British study, two-thirds of missing adults make a conscious decision to leave. Edited to add: A few years ago, an investigator named Philip Klein was hired by Dateline NBC to locate Patrick McDermott, a onetime Hollywood cameraman who also happened to be Olivia Newton-John’s former partner. McDermott had disappeared from a fishing boat in the Pacific, and the authorities presumed him dead. Early on, Klein likewise turned up only the vaguest hints that McDermott could be alive. “This was the ultimate walk-away,” Klein says. Then Klein decided to set up a Web site about the disappearance. Purporting to be asking for tips, it was designed specifically to trap visitors’ IP addresses. Suspecting that McDermott was in contact with at least one confidant from his former life — and relying on the investigator’s maxim that people on the run always monitor the pursuit — Klein blocked search engine crawlers from cataloging the site. He gave the URL only to McDermott’s friends and family. Ninety-six hours later, it started registering multiple daily hits from an IP address in the beach town of Sayulita, Mexico. Klein says he eventually tracked McDermott around South America and contacted him through an intermediary. McDermott had a simple message for the investigator: His new life was “nobody’s business.” So, I guess if the law isn't looking for you, it can be done.