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This wasn't just "a crying child". It was an adolescent girl, crying while looking out the window of a van, then pulled away from the window by an unidentified pair of arms. Two other occupants of the car were described as young men around 20-21 years of age. Since when are young men of that age in charge of adolescent girls? And since the two men were taking their time at a gas staion/convenience store, why didn't the girl get out of the van -- usually when people are travelling together a vehicle and are stopping for more than a very quick fill up, everybody gets out, stretches their legs, goes into the store together, etc., especially in the summer when a parked vehicle gets hot very quickly.

The witnesses didn't seem to think this was an ordinary "crying child" situation, and their interpretation of the girl's facial expression is probably well-founded. Also, the disappearance of the van and the two men (whose identities local police said they knew) right after the sighting was publicized as possibly related the Smart case or another child in trouble, is worrisome. Obviously police departments in that part of the country have been advised of the sighting and the vehicle description and plate number, and for the past few days many citizens have been aware of it as well, but still no sightings reported. And frankly, there's been enough publicity about it by now that most people living or travelling in the area would have heard about it, and if the people involved had nothing to hide, they'd have called police, explained what was going on, identified the girl, and provided some assurance of her safety.

Maybe we're not hearing everything police are doing, but I would think step one would be to try to contact the registered owner of the van/plate and see if s/he knows anything -- if the whole thing has a simple, innocent explanation, one would think the van's owner could provide it, or a neighbor or relative if the owner seems to be away and perhaps is one of the men in the van at the sighting. If anything is amiss with the registration, that combined with the reports suggesting a girl might be being held against her will, should be sufficient cause to post a few pictures around of the relevant individuals. These people almost certainly know police are looking for them, and have not come forward -- if you're in this kind of situation and don't want your picture posted all over under a "wanted by police for questioning" banner, then you have take some initiative to head that off.