Another Missing Child

FOXNews Alert

[two23]

FOXnews just (11:16 AM EDT) reported another missing child near St. Louis.... No text report yet

[RMDupree]

There is no denying that "networking", as you put it, is invaluable in any attempted rescue of a recently abducted child, but you have to ask yourself why the media has decided that all of these cases are more newsworthy now than they were a year ago.

[ksen]

"If it saves ONE child...

Did you read the article posted about the dog that fell overboard his master's boat and ended up swimming 10 miles to shore? Guess what one of the main threads of that article was. Yep, authorities were able to return the dog to his owner because it had a microchip in its ear.

Give it a few more weeks, Digital Angel will get some sort of government funding and the cry will ring through the halls of congress, "Digital Angel, save our children!"

[mewzilla]

We have experience with this. It's not pervs you really worry about with a little one that likes to go for walkies. It's cars in the street, the neighbor's cranky dog, the pool the guy next door doesn't have fenced in...There are plenty of things that can harm a kid out alone besides a perv.

[My Favorite Headache]

Just like shark attacks last summer. Until 9-11 that was the main story for them to thrive on. Always have some kind of fear out there...either that ratings tank.

[2Jedismom]

They have some kind of program here in Oklhoma where they flood the media when a child is stranger abducted. An actual alert goes out something like a storm alert. The media goes on the air and starts reporting and a banner scrolls down at the bottom. I've seen it work once.

[mommya]

I'm near St. Louis - they are saying the child was up in the morning with her dad - mom home too - girl in PJ's - she wanted cereal - dad said "I'll get it in a minute" - he went to the john - came back and she was gone - grandparents live across the street - they thought she may have walked over there - she often did go over there - she wasn't there - sound familiar - dunno where they (national news) are coming up with this red haired guy with a goatee they are lookin for - local news says nothin about him.

Demsux - can you add anything here.

Wait a minute - more coming in - confusing - apparantly the dad moved or came into the nieghborhood to be near his children (divorced?) - the mom and kids stayed with the dad in this house - same details about the cereal and stuff - but there was another man in the house sleeping on the couch - when the dad came out of the john the little girl and the guy from the couch were gone - the guy came back soaking wet - saying he had gone for a swim - he's the red haired goatee guy - he's been in custody every since being questionned.

[foolish-one]

The sad thing is if it turns out that the little girl was asleep in her room under a pile of stuffed animals, we'll all be feeling good, smiling and happy, but I'm not going to get a ton of private replies telling me how right I was to caution patience, but if she has been abducted and something terrible happens to her, I'm sure I'll get plenty saying "You idiot! I told you so!" (My question to them will be "Told me what?")

I didn't say an abduction wasn't a tragedy. I didn't say anything rediculous like that she or her parents deserved it. All I said was what we've been saying here for a long time: You can't trust the media. So now it makes you feel good and righteous and indignant and self-important so this time it's OK? Actually, I hope my cynicism proves true and this was all just hype over nothing. Now THAT sounds like optimism to me.

[My Favorite Headache]

A guy was staying at this house that the family spent the night at. When the father was making the girl breakfast both the girl and the guy were gone. The guy returned a few hrs later soaking wet and the cops asking him...where you been? He said swimming in the river. Obviously this guy is the one.

[sinkspur]

We may not hear of every single case because that would mean they would have to have a "Missing Child TV" show to keep us updated due to the large volume of abducted children that go unreported by TV everyday.

In the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, we've got the "Amber plan," named after a little girl abducted four years ago and killed.

When a missing child is reported, police notify a central number which alerts every radio and TV station in the area. An alert is issued.

Some of these are false alarms (the kid wandered away), but many are legitimate, and the plan has resulted in 12 or 13 recoveries of children, alive, directly due to the efforts of the community.

Most abductions are by a family member, at least here.

I understand that the Amber plan has migrated to other cities.

[mewzilla]

You mean the red-haired guy is a friend of the dad's?

[HiJinx]

Saturated airwaves worked to end an abduction in Tampa...
That verifies my first assumption, that increased media coverage helps the authorities by getting citizens involved.

I just hope the second half isn't true, that someone is trying to take advantage of the situation...

[My Favorite Headache]

LOL...although not a laughing matter..I have been writing your post for the last 10 mins or so on this thread...it's ok though :)

[mommya]

Looks like....sad.

[two23]

Isn't it about time that we brought back public hangings for the convicted perps? I really don't believe that anything else is going to get the point across.

No--they get attorneys that shed a cloud of reasonable doubt over the jury--or at best, they spend the next 20 years in air conditioned comfort on "death row"... I don't think child molester/kidnappers have ANY sense of right or wrong...why would a public hanging deter them? They know they have already hit bottom when they commit their crimes. Death by law may seem like the only way out of their HELL.

[My Favorite Headache]

This guy was a man who was apparently staying at this house.

[2Jedismom]

That's right! Ours is called The Amber Plan too.

[dawn53]

Again, in Tampa a few years ago, a guy who was a "one night stand" was staying with a woman, and her child ended up missing.

They never found the body of the little girl, but they were still able to convict the guy based on DNA evidence.

Wish I could remember his name, he was a strange bird, some crab trapper. I couldn't believe the mother would have let him stay in the same house as her kids.

[riri]

I agree, most of this is a media fed frenzy. They long to recover the good old days of the O.J trial or September 12th when we were glued to our sets and they were getting gangbuster ratings.

Yes times have changed and no, I don't let my five year old walk across the street to the neighbors house alone. But these are not new crimes. While I was never abducted or assaulted, I did have a very scary situation happen to me while at a very public place when I was about 6 or 7. I was at the greyhound race track in Vermont with my father and a few of his friends. I was the only child along. I remember it was a three story building. Seems we were on the top floor in some sort of a clubhouse, second floor was empty and bottom floor was betting windows, vendors,etc.

Well, I was going up and downstairs with the adults but as the evening wore on (and as the adults probably drank) I began to wander around. I was in between the poplulated floors, on the stairwell when an older man, complete stranger, grabbed me by the arm. Somehow, I remember breaking free and running fast as possible back up to the 3rd floor and telling all the adults and I vaguely remember a small manhunt for the guy.

In all these years, until recently, I have never thought about what could have happened to me that evening. More than likely that man was a repeat sex offender, maybe a murderer. He had the perfect opportunity and place. I was very lucky. I don't think these crimes are new. I think we are much more aware.

[mommya]

Sorry headache - I'm a slow typist - I had only read a few posts when I began listening and typing. Where are you?

[RMDupree]

The media is nothing more than a propaganda machine that churns out whatever misinformation satisfies their end goal.

We've seen this in the case of so-called "special rights" advocates that push their agendas through various high-profile cases. For example, Matthew Sheppard was murdered but because he was gay, it made headlines. James Byrd was murdered, but because he was black, it made headlines.

And how many times have these victims been shamelessly used by the media and special rights advocates as examples of why their agenda must be met? Murders are sadly commonplace, but in order to shock the conscience of the masses - the liberals used these selective horrible crimes to get their goals met (ie, hate crimes legislation, etc).