The case has been cited (by British charity Missing People, formerly the National Missing Persons Helpline, among others) as an example of missing white woman syndrome. This is because Williams, a working-class girl with a history of running away from home, received comparatively far less press coverage than other missing girls of a similar age who disappeared around the same time. Namely, Danielle Jones (who disappeared in June 2001 and whose body has never been found) and Milly Dowler, both of whom fit a supposedly more wholesome image of the middle-class schoolgirl from a stable family.