Word: strangers
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...upturned blossom, but she was born under the sign of the lion and her heart belonged to Hercules. The first-grader adored Disney's version of the hero and hung a poster of him over her bed. So Samantha Runnion, 5, reacted as her idol would have when a stranger first asked her to help find his chihuahua and then--as she bent down to show how small the dog might be--carried her into his car. She fought with all the might of her tiny arms and legs, and screamed to her friend, "Help me! Tell my grandmother...
...Stanton. "We use that as the patio." But when cops arrested 6-ft., 200-lb. Alejandro Avila, 27, for Samantha's rape and murder, residents had to reckon not only with the casual intrusion of evil into their midst but also with the fact that it was no stranger to the neighborhood. "He had been there before," said an Orange County sheriff's spokesman...
...experts can tell us that a child's being snatched by a stranger is rare and that these kinds of kidnappings are not on the increase. But every time it happens--and it happened again last week when Samantha Runnion, 5, playing just outside her apartment, was taken, screaming, and murdered--it strikes at our primal fear that we cannot protect our children against the incidental malice of the universe. But experts say parents can teach some basic safety lessons and reinforce them regularly...
YELL AND TELL. Ernie Allen, head of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says the old adage "Don't talk to strangers" has limited value if the stranger doesn't come off as a potential threat to a child. Young children often envision strangers as evil looking and might not identify a well-dressed, soft-spoken man looking for help finding his dog as someone to distrust. Security expert Gavin de Becker, author of Protecting the Gift (Little Brown), says parents must educate their kids to be assertive and, specifically, to yell and tell. "When someone tells your child...
Nagasaki's best experiences are its surprises-like the kind stranger on a streetcar who invites me to dinner ("I have a daughter who studied English in Canada. Let me make you sushi!"). On my last Saturday in town, I am on my way to visit the Suwa Shinto Shrine when I hear the music of a parade. Two large drums, carried on the backs of robed festival participants, keep rhythm for a 20-person contingent. Men in suits and white-faced women in bright kimonos lead the procession down stone sidewalks, beginning the 168-step ascent to the three...