How can we protect our children?

This past Wednesday, April 19, little Hailey Owens from Springfield, Missouri, was kidnapped and within a couple of hours was raped and murdered (shot at the base of her skull). All of Springfield and surrounding area are mourning the loss of this beautiful young girl.

We are struggling to make sense of how a 45-year-old man, Craig Michael Wood, a middle-school coach and paraprofessional for in-school suspension, and a local musician, could do such a thing. Questions arose as to why this man was even working for the school system. The school has assured us that an extensive background check had been done and all that was found was a minor drug infraction back in 1990 - 24 years ago - and a minor hunting infraction in 2001, (apparently he hit a deer with his car, but the judge, a wildlife advocate, felt otherwise). He had been working for the Springfield school system for 15 years - with no problems whatsoever! His neighbors described him as quiet, most of the kids seemed to like him - one even said he was the best coach ever!

Of course, new information is just now coming out and I'm sure there will be more. A raid of his house found child pornography in a three-ring binder and several guns. During questioning so far he stated that in his 20s he had black-out spells and he has had a problem with alcohol. We still wonder, though, how did he stay off the radar for so long?

Hailey was sick earlier that day so she didn't go to school. (I need to point out that Craig Wood did NOT work at Hailey's school and they did NOT know each other.) Later after school was out she felt better and walked the two blocks to her best friend's house. It was during that walk that she was abducted. A few people saw Wood grab Hailey and tried to stop it, then tried chasing Wood with their car. When that failed, they called 911 with a description of the truck and license plate number and then went from house to house to try to find her parents. Because of the information police received they found Wood within 3-4 hours, but it was already too late.

This is such a sad and almost unbelievable story and Springfield is "reeling." We just don't know what to make of it. In our efforts to do something, we've set up funds to help Hailey's family with expenses, there will be a candlelight march on the northside of town tonight, a motorcycle ride is planned. And while we know it won't bring Hailey back, we hope it sends a message to her parents that we as a community care.

Almost immediately a Facebook page was set up in memory of Hailey Porch Lights for Hailey Owens. We were asked to turn on our porch light. Within an hour there were over 100,000 people all over the US and across the world turning on their porch lights and sending in pictures. As of this moment there are over 214,000 people around the world committed to turning on their porch lights in memory of Hailey and other children who have been kidnapped and murdered.

I remember when my own son David was that age in 1990. It hadn't been too long since Adam Walsh had been kidnapped and murdered; children's faces were on milk cartons and it was very much on our minds how dangerous the world was. My son was not allowed to leave our yard when he played outside. He went to a small private school so he didn't really know any of the neighborhood children until he was older. However, he did have friends stay over on the weekend - sometimes two, three, or four boys at a time. As silly as even I thought it was, he was still in daycare the summer after he turned 13 (under the guise that he was helping out). When he started public school in his middle school years, he took the bus which was two blocks away. I sat in the car at the bus stop until it arrived. I noticed the house where the bus stopped - a man sat at his window every morning and watched. I don't know if he was interested in keeping the kids safe or not, I wasn't about to find out.

Even as our children get older, we realize the danger is still not over. When David reached driving age, I would leave the newspaper open on the kitchen table when a teen had been involved in a horrific wreck. I wanted him to see what could still happen. He told me later that he saw those pictures and they scared him!

I've always been amazed though how many parents were just not available to their teens after midnight. One night while spending the night with a friend, he called around 2-3 a.m. because their car had broken down. There were four boys and I was the last parent to be called; none of the other parents answered their phone. As I was getting dressed to go out and rescue them, I could not believe that these kids' parents were unavailable at night. I found it even more amazing that one parent actually turned their phone off at night. The reason I know was because David had told me that he "might" spend the night at a friend's house, but he would let me know for sure. When he didn't call and still wasn't home at curfew, I started calling his friend's house an hour later. They did not answer until 8 or 9 in the morning because they turned their phone off at night - and they still had two teenage boys at home!

It seems though that sometimes even when we are extremely cautious there is very little we can do to protect our kids. Our own little town recently suffered several teen losses in only a couple of years. At least nine teens are gone much too soon in only the past three to four years. And from back in 1992 is the still unsolved case of The Springfield Three - two teenage friends Stacie McCall and Suzanne Streeter, and Suzanne's mother Sherrill Levitt who went missing the night after high school graduation.

I know Hailey's mom did nothing wrong - she said she walked her daughter to school every day, and this one day, because it was so nice, she let Hailey go to her friend's house by herself. Hailey and her friend always met half-way, but not that day.