INDIANAPOLIS -- The surprise discovery of Elizabeth Smart in Utah has placed more attention on missing children all over the country, including Indiana.

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Shannon Sherrill Has Been Missing Since 1986 Indiana Missing Childrens' Web Site

There are currently 775 missing children in Indiana, RTV6's Kristi Tedesco reported.

But police say the state hasn't had an unsolved child abduction involving a suspect who was a stranger to the victim, in 17 years, Tedesco reported.

"It is very unusual to have a stranger abduction. Those are the exceptions. Usually it is a runaway. A child upset will run away from the family. Parental abductions account for about 5 percent," Indiana State Police spokesman Dave Bursten said.

On Oct. 5, 1986, Shannon Sherrill, 6, vanished from a mobile home park in Thorntown, which is in Boone County.

Witnesses saw her playing that day and investigators said it was like the earth opened up and swallowed her, Tedesco reported.

"I feel she's out there. It's just a matter of finding her. Some days I have my down days and I just don't know if I'll ever see her again," Shannon's mother, Dorothy Sherrill, said in Sept. 2000.

After her parents spoke to RTV6 in 2000, police received a couple leads in the case, but both fell flat, Tedesco reported.

Four years ago, police released a picture of what Shannon might have looked at at the age of 19 (pictured, above).

According to the Indiana Missing Childrens' Web site, a missing child was reported 11,842 times in 2002. All but 679 of those calls were resolved.

"When someone runs away, and if they come back home and run away again ... and they run away seven times in one year ... they count as an individual case each time. So, of the 11,000, we have a number of people who are multiple entries," Bursten said.

But the Shannon Sherrill case still baffles authorities 17 years later. Investigators would still like to close the case.

"We'd like to know what happened to her. If she's alive, we'd like to get her back to her folks. If she's buried somewhere, we'd like to get closure for the family," retired ISP Detective Francis Shrock said.

Pictures and descriptions of missing children can be found at the Indiana Missing Childrens' Web site.