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I was visiting my Dad when the door bell rang. Strangely, there was no one else in the living room at the time so I answered it myself. A woman about my age was at the door and she had a somewhat ashen deer-in-the-headlights look about her.
I went back upstairs to give her the bad news. At the same time, my sister-in-law Becky came out to see what was going on. Recognizing a fellow-freaked-out-parent, she started talking with Dylan's mom. Turns out Becky was a whole lot more helpful than I could be - she whipped out a book of phone numbers of all of Russell's friends and let Dylan's mom have a look. I fetched the phone and invited her to use it.
She reached Dylan on the first try - he was at another friend's house where he had gone straight from school. It was now 6:30 and pitch dark out (it being the dead of winter in Canada). As she talked to her son you could see the rising panic washed away by relief - which was then replaced by the sort of irritation that all moms knows.
A happy ending, but I remember another mother who came to the same door twenty four years earlier. It was early in the morning and I was getting ready to go to junior high (I was 12 or 13). The door bell rang and there was a truly frantic mom who's daughter had been missing all night.
Being 12 I totally missed the gravity of the situation and pretty much blew her off (I was in a hurry to go to school). Later that night my parents explained the situation to me - that a seven year old girl had gone missing. That the neighborhood had been turned upside down looking for her and that (because she had not been found in 24 hours) it was likely that she had been kidnapped.
They found her three days later. She had been murdered and her body was dumped in the trash three blocks away. They quickly caught the murderer and I have no idea what became of him - if he was sent to prison or an asylum. I wonder sometimes where he is now - is he incarcerated still or did he leave under his own power or in a bag?
I am against the death penalty, but I can certainly sympathize with its supporters. As you get older you get a better sense of just how long 25 years is - and how it's not long enough when the murderer could possibly be released and your loved ones are still dead.
It's been so long I'm not even sure of the details of her murder - I know her name was Kimberley Thompson. I remember playing with her older brother who was about my age. I remember that her family lived across the alley from us. They moved a few months after the murder to parts unknown. Of the murderer, I know nothing at all.
Mostly I remember the effect it had on the neighborhood. Before her body was found, simply walking down the street elicited surveillance from every window on the street. Before and after, for at least a year, the streets were lonely and abandoned after sunset. Nobody played outside and there was no dawdling on the way home from school.
I know why parents get gray hairs.
"Is Dylan here?" she asked.So I went downstairs to find Russell out cold in bed - according to his brother Billy, he stayed home from school because he was sick.
"I don't know - is he a friend of my niece or nephews?", I replied.
"He's a friend of Russell", she said.
"Hold on while I check".
I went back upstairs to give her the bad news. At the same time, my sister-in-law Becky came out to see what was going on. Recognizing a fellow-freaked-out-parent, she started talking with Dylan's mom. Turns out Becky was a whole lot more helpful than I could be - she whipped out a book of phone numbers of all of Russell's friends and let Dylan's mom have a look. I fetched the phone and invited her to use it.
She reached Dylan on the first try - he was at another friend's house where he had gone straight from school. It was now 6:30 and pitch dark out (it being the dead of winter in Canada). As she talked to her son you could see the rising panic washed away by relief - which was then replaced by the sort of irritation that all moms knows.
A happy ending, but I remember another mother who came to the same door twenty four years earlier. It was early in the morning and I was getting ready to go to junior high (I was 12 or 13). The door bell rang and there was a truly frantic mom who's daughter had been missing all night.
Being 12 I totally missed the gravity of the situation and pretty much blew her off (I was in a hurry to go to school). Later that night my parents explained the situation to me - that a seven year old girl had gone missing. That the neighborhood had been turned upside down looking for her and that (because she had not been found in 24 hours) it was likely that she had been kidnapped.
They found her three days later. She had been murdered and her body was dumped in the trash three blocks away. They quickly caught the murderer and I have no idea what became of him - if he was sent to prison or an asylum. I wonder sometimes where he is now - is he incarcerated still or did he leave under his own power or in a bag?
I am against the death penalty, but I can certainly sympathize with its supporters. As you get older you get a better sense of just how long 25 years is - and how it's not long enough when the murderer could possibly be released and your loved ones are still dead.
It's been so long I'm not even sure of the details of her murder - I know her name was Kimberley Thompson. I remember playing with her older brother who was about my age. I remember that her family lived across the alley from us. They moved a few months after the murder to parts unknown. Of the murderer, I know nothing at all.
Mostly I remember the effect it had on the neighborhood. Before her body was found, simply walking down the street elicited surveillance from every window on the street. Before and after, for at least a year, the streets were lonely and abandoned after sunset. Nobody played outside and there was no dawdling on the way home from school.
I know why parents get gray hairs.
