Invasion of the Baby Snatchers

Child abductions seem rampant. Is that mainly because of our reaction to them?

Too damned often the photos are the last we see of them: school portraits or family snapshots reproduced on blurry newsprint or flickering TV screens. The parents hold up the pictures at press conferences and tell their sad, familiar stories: one minute the child was there--in a bedroom, a store, a car seat--and then, in the blink of an eye, she wasn't. Please help us find her. Call this number. Contact the FBI. And sometimes it works. Someone recognizes the photo--the ponytail, the freckles, the wide brown eyes--and the stolen child is found and rescued. Sometimes.

Lately we have been seeing...

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