Because of ignorance, indifference or poor training, police here and around the nation fumble missing-person reports.

Bodies remain unidentified, families get no answers and killers get away.

Over two weeks, the P-I revealed the startling results of a year spent investigating the problem.

THE STORIES:

PART 1
The P-I has found a virtual army of dead and missing people first victimized by their killer, then by a failure in the investigation of their disappearance.

PART 2
For 17 years now, someone has gotten away with murder in Chelan County -- partly because of flaws in the system for tracking missing people.

PART 3
Police dodge missing persons reports in Kent and Bremerton and dump them on others to avoid paperwork, helping killers get away and leaving families frustrated and hopeless.

PART 4
Experts know that serial killers are adept at using the system against itself, targeting those who are marginalized by society, including the missing.
- A guide to Washington's serial killers

PART 5
Many serial killers remain unnoticed for years because their crimes show little or no common link.

PART 6
A convicted serial killer tells of his only regret: that he didn't hide his last victim better.

PART 7
Unidentified bodies, some of them murder victims, remain nameless and unburied because of gaps throughout the system.
- Key to man's ID in a file all along
- A list of Washington's unidentified dead

PART 8
Investigators are tormented by an inability to find a child's identity or her killer.
- Woman clings to faint hope of finding her missing sister

PART 9
The FBI has national database to link the missing and the dead based on their dental records. But it consistently fails.
- Why the system doesn't work

PART 10
The nation's systems for tracking missing-persons cases and identifying the anonymous dead are broken. Today, experts tell us how to fix them.
- Lack of a DNA database hampers police
- Links to resources and additional information