Child abduction scare of 2002

Despite the statistical decrease of non-custodial child abductions since 1999, extensive media coverage of selected cases created a nationwide sense of panic.

It was a remarkable event probably not to be repeated anytime soon.”[9] Westerfield's defense argued that he could not receive a fair trial without a sequestered jury due to the media frenzy; however, this was denied by the judge.

After a 12 hour manhunt the girls were discovered in Walker Pass, in a Ford Bronco being driven by convicted sex offender Roy Ratliff.

[28] On August 6, 2002, George W. Bush addressed the problem, specifically mentioning the cases of van Dam and Runnion, and announcing a White House Conference on Missing, Exploited and Runaway Children to convene that September.

[30] In October the House of Representatives met to consider a Child Abduction Prevention Act that would create a national Amber alert, as well as mandatory sentencing, lifetime supervision of past offenders, removal of a statute of limitations and pre-trial release, among other things.

Consideration of the bill was explicitly linked to the rash of high profile abductions by Representatives Lamar Smith and Mark Green.

Child safety advocates noted that parents and local police forces were becoming more media savvy, and had designed methods such as the Amber alert system to get the message out that children were missing during the first hours of being abducted.

[40] Some scholars and journalists have noted that the scare came after the trauma of the September 11 attacks, when the country was in a heightened state of paranoia and Americans had a fear of some evil predator lurking in their own communities.

One of the first child abductions to garner mass media attention was the 1874 kidnapping of Charley Ross as the United States was entering the industrialized Gilded Age.

The widely publicized cases of Adam Walsh, Etan Patz and Jacob Wetterling stimulated national paranoia about so-called stranger danger.