[GovernmentShrinker]

The neighbors would run out to help look without knowing all the details, and hoping it was a sneaking out situation, but fearful it was a kidnapping/rape/murder.

And it doesn't appear that the perpetrator had much difficulty getting Elizabeth out of her home in the middle of the night. I'm not sure what you're implying is the big difference between the two cases -- the Hansen case was a family acquaintance bent on a vicious, apparently partly sexual, assault, who took the child from her bedroom in the middle of the night; there is reason to believe that the Smart case involved a family acquaintance, the perp definitely took the girl from her bedroom in the middle of the night, and we still don't know for what purpose.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Bedtime. 'Night all.

ZZZZzzzzzzz...

GS

[Devil_Anse]

The neighbors would run out to help look without knowing all the details, and hoping it was a sneaking out situation, but fearful it was a kidnapping/rape/murder.

Exactly. Or most of the neighbors may not have known anything more than that Elizabeth was missing. For all they knew, perhaps, she'd turned out to be a sleepwalker and somehow left the house and fallen into a ditch. Or for those who imagined something more sinister, who hasn't heard the thing about how the first 3 hours after a child abduction are the most critical?