I’ve been busy for the past year writing a book called The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People Who Search for Them. It will be released in April by my publisher, Rowman & Littlefield. Over the next few months, I am going to talk a lot about missing person investigations, the families involved and the latest scientific tools out there.

But closer to home and a lot less clinical is the search for a missing North Carolina child, Zahra Clare Baker. Disabled — Zahra wears hearing aids and a leg brace — the Australian-born little girl has not been seen in weeks. Her parents reported her missing on Oct. 9th and, according to reports, the child’s homelife was supposedly investigated by the state’s Department of Social Services.

A a cop, I came in contact with North Carolina’s DSS on several abuse and neglect situations. While it is true the social workers assigned to these cases were overworked and underpaid, I also wasn’t terribly impressed with most of them. One case in particular stands out: An infant — three months old — whose single mother worked as an exotic dancer every night. She would leave the baby on the floor, which was covered with dirty carpet, and go to work. There was no one taking care of the child while the mother was gone, often for 10 hours at a time. The child had already been removed from the home once and then given back to the mom by DSS. After the second offense, guess what? They once again gave the little girl back to her mom.

I don’t know where Zahra Baker is, but I fear the worst. And if the worst comes to pass, then DSS needs to be held accountable. It is way past time to put the child’s welfare first — NO EXCUSES.