Jesse Kapon was beside himself with worry when his daughter, Juliette Kapon, 16, went missing from their New York City home on Nov. 19, 2024.
Equally scared was Chase Desormeaux, whose young sons, Colton and Cohen Desormeaux, ages 5 and 7, disappeared on Nov. 18, 2024, from their Lake Charles, La., home.
Both fathers reported their children missing to law enforcement – and then to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
The search for the children dragged on for months, with few leads, until recently.
On March 1, 7 and 22, REELZ’s documentary series On Patrol: Live aired “Missing” segments featuring the three children’s cases.
On Sunday March 30, all three were safely returned to their families with the show’s help.
In an exclusive statement to PEOPLE, Jesse Kapon says, “My Juliette is home safe and it’s all because of NCMEC and the television show, On Patrol: Live. Through them, she heard my voice! I can never thank them enough for making this happen.”
In his statement to PEOPLE, Chase Desormeaux admits, “I was holding on by a thread – mentally and emotionally – with all these months of not knowing if my boys were safe or if they were ok. It’s a heartache and worry that cannot be described. After the television show aired and NCMEC shared my story nationwide, everything changed with the investigation.”
Airing every Friday and Saturday night from 9 pm to 12 am ET, On Patrol Live features “Missing” segments with cases from NCMEC and the Black and Missing Foundation (BAMFI).
During these segments, host Dan Abrams and others ask viewers to call special NCMEC and BAMFI hotline numbers if they have any information on the missing children or adults featured that night.
“This is the first time that two missing cases (three children) featured back to back on the same TV show have been found in the same 24 hour period,” says Angeline Hartmann, NCMEC’s Director of Communications.
Often police have few or no leads with missing persons cases, says Hartmann.
In Juliette’s case, on Nov. 19, she went to school, like usual,” and then disappeared, says Hartmann. “When her father starts to dig, he finds footage of her leaving school, which we showed in our On Patrol: Live segment.”
After the segment airs, then the show’s legions of fans, “OP Nation,” takes over, says Hartmann. “They watch the show and take pictures of the screen, share it on social media and then they start Googling other details they share on social media. It just really goes farther than any other show that I’ve seen.”
The show gets results. To date, 40 people, mostly children, have been recovered after being featured on the show.
When Juliette was reunited with her father, “she tells dad that she saw herself on On Patrol: Live – and came home,” says Hartmann.
Missing segments can be found on Twitter (@OfficialOPLive), Instagram (@officialoplive) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ReelzOfficialOPLive/).
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