So I found a different sketch of David Blockett‘s abductor, which is I think of better quality aesthetically speaking but doesn’t really resemble the first sketch I had all that much. The woman in the second sketch has a narrower face and nose and straighter eyebrows than the woman in the first sketch.
Sometimes composite sketches of unknown suspects can turn out to be a dead ringer for the criminal when they’re caught; other times they totally miss the mark. Since they never identified the woman who took David, we don’t know if the sketches really look like her or not. I have put up both of course, along with a more detailed description of the abductor. The written description I found specifically said she had arched eyebrows.
I am not meaning to criticize anyone when I say this, because I know times were different back in the day. But when I read accounts of old child disappearances, I think people used to be much more naive.
I have read that in 1874, when Charley Ross (the Charley Project’s namesake)’s dad attempted to report the four-year-old’s abduction to the police, the police were initially like “Meh, the guys who did it were probably drunk and thought it was some kind of joke; they’ll give him back when they sober up. Come back to us later if he doesn’t show up.” When four-year-old Joseph Rodriguez disappeared from Manhattan, his aunt didn’t report him missing for almost 24 hours “because she thought he would come back on his own.” That was in 1936.
I remember reading a book about the 1978 disappearance of 13-year-old Genette Tate from England; the book was written in 1980 if I recall correctly. The author said he at first had a hard time believing that anyone would want to abduct Genette for sexual purposes because she looked so young, like a small child, in the first photo he saw of her. But it turned out she’d only been ten in that photo. When he saw a more recent photo of Genette, he decided a sexual motive might be possible after all because she looked like the teenager she was. Apparently this author had never heard of pedophiles who prefer pre-pubescent kids as victims.
That same year the book was written, 1980, David Blockett’s mom let a “social worker” she didn’t know take her newborn and toddler to a “children’s party” without her. In 1981, 14-year-old Carla Owens‘s parents weren’t concerned when she went for a babysitting job and didn’t call or anything for the next four days, since it was supposed to be a multi-day job and “Carla frequently stayed away from home for days at a time.”
Nowadays people seem to keep a much closer eye on their kids and are very concerned about the adults they allow their kids to be around. Like, day care facilities often have camera feeds which parents can view remotely in order to make sure everything is okay with their children. Many children aren’t allowed to walk to school or to the school bus stop alone. Parents who let their six-year-old walk to school alone, like Kathleen Shea‘s did in 1965, could potentially even be cited for neglect.
I think it goes too far sometimes. In 2014 a woman had someone call CPS and the police on her because she let her six-year-old play outside alone 150 yards from their house, and later told the media her story and said people should not waste CPS’s valuable time and resources with frivolous reports like that. A coworker of mine once said she wouldn’t let her kids spend the night with anyone else at all, not even to go camping with their own uncles whom she claimed she trusted, because “you never know what could happen when parents aren’t around.” Did she trust the uncles, or not, because in spite of what she said it sounded like she didn’t trust them. I remember reading a conversation with others on a message board; the topic was when it was okay to let a kid leave the house alone and go out and about town by themselves. “When they’re 18,” a lot of people said, which seemed excessively cautious to me. One parent claimed they wouldn’t even let their child ride in an elevator without supervision lest a “quick thinking pedophile” take advantage of that minute or two to abuse the child, something I thought sounded kind of paranoid.
I don’t know if it’s just that parents are held to a much higher standard in general now, or if all the high-profile child abductions and serial killers and all the true crime stuff that’s constantly all over the media has caused this. Technology may be a factor, since it’s much easier to keep in touch now due to cell phones and social media. That has progressed so much so quickly, particularly since the early 2000s. I know many parents install tracking apps on their kids’ phones so they can monitor their every movement if necessary. I’m sure those apps could be life-saving, particularly if the kid had disabilities or had a habit of running away from home.
It’s hard to say what I’d do because I do not, and will never, have children of my own. Kids running around outside without an adult are a lot more likely to get hit by cars than they are to be abducted by a stranger, however.
The Charley Project Blog 