Over the years they have worked tirelessly to help families of missing persons find their loved ones. The couple along with Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand celebrated a major victory in their struggle on Thursday, Aug. 14 when President Bush signed the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act.

The act of legislation that was first introduced by former Congressman John Sweeney is an amendment to the College Opportunity and Affordability Act.  The bill requires all institutions of higher education to have policies outlining the role of campus, local and state law enforcement agencies if a violent crime occurs on campus. The Lyall’s had been fighting for the legislation’s approval since 2004.

“Every student has the right to pursue their studies in a safe environment, and every parent has the right to know that their children are going to be protected from violent crimes when they send them off to college,” Doug and Mary Lyall said in a written statement. “We can never, with 100 percent surety, guarantee the safety of every student on every campus, but we can guarantee to do everything in our power to have laws and procedures in place to protect our students as much as possible.  Congresswoman Gillibrand’s amendment will help protect more students on college campuses.”

The Lyall’s, along with Gillibrand, are also currently working to make April 6 - Suzanne’s birthday – National Missing Persons Day. President Bush refused to sign the legislation last April because it conflicted with another crime victim’s birthday. Gillibrand has already passed a resolution in the House of Representatives to make the date a permanent celebration.

Since Suzanne’s disappearance, the Lyall’s have co-founded the Center for Hope, a non-profit organization that assists families dealing with missing person cases. The couple has also started a program that features playing cards with pictures of missing people and victims of violent crimes from around the Capital Region.

Suzanne Lyall, a 19-year-old student at SUNY Albany at the time of her disappearance, was last seen March 2, 1998 exiting a CDTA bus at the school’s uptown campus. Although there have been several leads in the case since her disappearance, the case remains unsolved.

“I am thrilled that we can get the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act signed into law, which will enhance communication between campus safety officials and local law enforcement during the crucial first hours of an investigation.  These safety provisions will protect more college students from serious danger, which is perhaps that best way that we can honor Suzanne’s life,” Gillibrand said in a written statement.

Skidmore College Director of Safety, Dennis Conway, was a Lieutenant in the State Police Department at the time of Lyall’s disappearance and was actively involved in the investigation. He believes it is a good thing to require campuses to have procedures in place to deal with missing person cases.

“The idea is to have all the resources available at your disposal,” he said. “If someone is missing you want to have other agencies ready and if you have these procedures ironed out ahead of time then you don’t have to go through the delay.”

Conway said a couple of years ago he and Saratoga Springs Police Chief Ed Moore sat down and came up with an agreement between Skidmore College and the city police department that would allow campus safety to immediately begin an investigation and contact city police as soon as they had credible info into a missing student case. It also gave police the right to reach out to other law enforcement agencies like the State Police and Saratoga County Sheriffs Office.

“There is no time frame to wait, we start the investigation immediately,” he said.

Conway said two years ago campus safety had a student reported missing and the agreement between both departments made it possible for them to advise city police immediately and move forward with an investigation.

“We started with photos, then we made posters, then we started contacting all kinds of people, we even started checking train and bus stations and found that she never told anybody she was going to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio,” he said. “She was pretty embarrassed when she got back to find her picture plastered all over campus, but we just followed all the protocols.”

He said cases like this are not unusual with college students because they have a tendency to take off without telling anyone or not contacting their parents for weeks at a time.

“Most people we receive calls about are not actually missing, they just aren’t accounted for,” he said.

In 1999, former New York Gov. George Pataki enacted a similar piece of legislation called the New York State Campus Safety Act, which required all institutions to install formal plans in order to investigate missing students and victims of violent crimes committed on campus.