It was summer, my daughter was crawling everywhere and babbling baby talk like she was getting paid for it....there had been a string of kidnappings on the news, little blond girls from all over but this one - this one was the one that would keep me up at night. Her name was Samantha Runnion and she had a sweet smile and massive curly brown hair. I will never forget her face. She was playing in the courtyard between apartments with her friend when a man got out of his car and asked if they'd seen his dog. He grabbed Samantha and he was gone. The little girls were both 5. It was all over in a matter of three days. Her body was found roughly 24 hours after she was snatched and her murderer was caught two days later. He was caught because the other little girl was a fantastic witness - she described him and his car and adults involved in the case and people who recognized the man from her description were able to piece everything together and not only arrest him but three years later, in 2005, find him guilty and sentence him to death.
What concerned me that summer of 2002 with my little red haired elf crawling around on the floor was not conviction tho, it was prevention. It's impossible to keep your eyes and hands on your child at all times - they won't be normal if you hover like a giant mama bird all the time. But how do you keep them safe? For me, I made mine aware - aware of everything going on around them so that they would be alerted to danger at the first sign, not reacting to it after it was too late.
So I started a game, we would be driving along and I would say, "What color is that car next to us?" or "tell me what the driver looks like in that car." or "What type of car is that? Van, Minivan, 2 door, 4 door, etc." That was the ground work for what was to come. When my kids had established a good foundation of observation I would say, "Close your eyes! Tell me about the car next to us." and I would prompt them if they got stuck. Get as much as you can - driver, skin color, hat, facial hair, clothes; car, color, type, age; direction of travel. I also do this for landmarks about where we are or I quiz them about where we could be going while I'm driving - in case they get kidnapped and are able to call 911 but don't know where they are. We make it a game but I tell them why I we do it......they know Samantha Runnion's name.
I allow my tiny people to play in the driveway occasionally (my big dog is out there too) and sometimes I will watch from the window - when I see a car drive by I will go outside and say, "a car just drove by - describe it" and they'll give me everything they can about the car and driver - it's a good way to keep them aware of the world around them. So they are never surprised by someone stopping in front of the house - if someone were to slow down, my kids should already be on the porch with their hand on the doorknob, hopefully saying very loudly, "I don't know you. MOM someone's here!"
They say it only takes a second, it's always when you least expect it and in most cases it could have been prevented. The reason Samantha Runnion haunts me is because these do not apply to her - she had long enough to kick and scream and fight and yell for the other girl to get her grandma, the kidnapper had been acquitted of molesting two other girls in that same apartment complex and both girls did everything right because they tried to get away and when Samantha was gone the other one got all the information she could to the police.......everything could have gone the right way.......but it didn't. And I carry her story around inside me - so much, in fact, that until I started writing today's blog and felt the need to look her up I had no idea that Friday is the 9 year anniversary of her death.
This is great advice! I love your blog!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I love writing it and it's good to hear that at least a few people are reading it.
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