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CNN Saturday Morning News
String of Child Abductions Ignite Parents' Fears
Aired August 17, 2002 - 07:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators in Virginia are asking the public for help as they search for the missing daughter of a couple found dead in their home. Nine-year-old Jennifer Short has been missing since Thursday, the day her parents were found shot to death.
Police suspect she was abducted. As Casey Wian reports, she is the latest in a string of high-profile kidnap victims that have ignited the fears of parents.
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CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From California...
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL: The girls are safe in the care of the Kertan (ph) County Sheriff's Department, the suspect is deceased.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This certainly makes me wonder what's wrong with our society when a little 5-year-old girl can't play outside of her house.
WIAN: ... to Utah...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Please let her go if you've got her.
WIAN: ... to Virginia...
SGT. KIMMIE NESTER, HENRY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: With every hour and each day goes by, it becomes distinctly more difficult, and also more likely that harm may occur.
WIAN: ... it seems there's an epidemic of child kidnappings. Television networks, including CNN, now break away from presidential speeches to broadcast updates on missing children.
Parents are gripped by fear. But despite months of intense media coverage, the numbers tell a different story.
PETER BANKS, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: What we have found is, these types of cases are -- have been remained pretty constant over the last 10 years, and in fact, there may even be a decrease.
WIAN: The number of missing children reported to the FBI dropped 9 percent from 1998 through last year. The vast majority involve lost children or parental custody disputes and are resolved quickly. The most serious cases, kidnapping with the intent to harm or keep, are declining even faster, from 134 in 1999 to 62 so far this year. About 60 percent of those are recovered safely.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says the improvement is the result of public awareness, better law enforcement training, and demographic shifts producing fewer children. It also credits the Amber Alert system, now spreading nationwide, with rescuing 23 kidnapped children.
Parents are taking high-tech measures of their own. Wearify (ph) Wireless is selling this wristwatch with a global positioning device that can alert 911 and locate a child through satellite imaging. Available next month, the company reports thousands of advance sales at $400 each plus $20 monthly.
(on camera): In six weeks, President Bush will host the first White House conference on missing children, so the issue is likely to remain atop the national agenda for some time.
Casey Wian, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS, Los Angeles.
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