Today was a slow day at work, so I did what I often do when I find myself with a little bit of time on my hands - I checked the Extrapol circulation notices.

Surprisingly enough, the most current notice wasn't even listed on the main page, but I found it somewhere else. A student at the UAS Trier has been missing since 07 Jun 2007. Her friends and family have launched a website in the hopes of finding someone who might have witnessed what happened to her, Findet Tanja.

She's pretty. She's been missing for almost two months now. Somehow I doubt she's still alive.

Someone printed out one of the flyers available on the website and put it up on the bulletin board of the supermarket around the corner from where I work. I bet it was a colleague.

Her case reminded me of my "favorite" one, although favorite is the wrong word here. Ever since I started at my current job, I've been following the state of the case in the hopes that a young girl found abused to death in Frankfurt-Nied in 2001 would finally be identified and her murderer(s) brought to justice.

The case is still open. Every time I check the notice, I become so enraged.

How is it that something like this could happen? Didn't anyone notice? Didn't anyone care? She must have suffered so much in her short life.

We've become so jaded by the seemingly endless number of crime series on tv. But things like that are not always fictional. Sometimes they're real. And they often lack a satisfying ending.

I'll stop now before I become totally depressed.