Visions

Standing 25 ft. above Beyer Boulevard in Chula Vista, Calif., near San Diego, the blank billboard attracted no attention until some passersby claimed they saw a face in the shadows caused by the light fixtures. The face, they swore, was that of Laura Arroyo, 9, a local girl who was abducted and murdered last month. Gawkers began gathering in twos and threes, then in ever larger throngs. One evening last week, an estimated 25,000 assembled amid ice-cream and food vendors, causing a two-mile-long traffic jam. One hustling entrepreneur took over a vacant lot and charged $3 a car for parking.

Seeking to relieve the traffic congestion, the billboard company installed more powerful lights to alter the shadows. But the multitude did not disperse: spectators claimed that the new pattern formed the likeness of another Chula Vista girl, murdered five years before.

As the largely Hispanic crowd started to build a makeshift shrine at the base of the structure, its owners planned to plaster the billboard over with a photo of Laura Arroyo, accompanied by a police-department phone number for people who may have tips on the slayer's identity.