I think it would behoove us all to retain a healthy level of skepticism, but to likewise not think the complete worst of a situation we know VERY little about.
And from her own BEDROOM?!? How does that work?!
Amazingly, children have been known to be kidnapped directly from their bedrooms by total strangers. Little Polly Klaas was abducted in this manner, her two friends spending the night were tied up, threatened, and ordered to keep quiet, and the man left with Polly, subsequently raping and killing her. The police focused heavily on Polly's father Mark initially, and the delay cost them precious time in which Polly could have been found alive. I do understand that the odds weigh heavily in the favor against stranger abduction, but it can't be ignored that there are a whole lot of whackos out there and they do very bad things.
Having said that, I can't help but feel there is more to this story than we now know. Is it possible the girl went with this guy voluntarily? And what kind of hold did he have on her all these months? In other words, I wonder if she went through an experience similar to Patty Hearst and perhaps became emotionally tied with this creep.
Interestingly, I thought the same thing at first. I wondered if she might have gone willingly with the man. She was 14, after all. This was not an 8 year old girl, and it isn't beyond the scope of imagination that she might have been complicit in her disappearance. I told my husband last night that I hoped she hadn't gone willingly--to cause such pain to her parents and wreak such havoc on the whole world would be really awful. He brought me right down to earth when he asked how on earth it would be better that she was kidnapped against her will, raped and tortured? I pointed out that it surprised me that a 14-15 year old girl wouldn't find at least one opportunity to run away screaming toward the nearest person. He then pointed that kidnappers exert very serious hold on their victims, and grown adults have been known to come to identify with their captors. In any event, no matter the details surrounding her disappearance, I'm am so thrilled for her family (and her!) that she has come home. I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child under any circumstances.
She was reared in a beautiful home, educated, and from all the pictures I've seen of her, appears to be a very innocent human being.
I'm sorry, but present situation notwithstanding, this is a silly thing to say. A beautiful house, education and a lovely appearance guarantee nothing. How many hundreds of horrible events have we seen reported that end with something along the lines of "It's so hard to believe, he/she was such a nice person from such a good family." Please.
And as a side note, I had a very hard time listening to everyone crying out "God has answered our prayers!" Does that mean that in each case where a child did NOT come home, God just wasn't around? I'm sure that makes me a horrible cynic, but forgive me. Faith and I have been arm-wrestling a lot in the last year or two, and it seems I'm winning. It's too bad. I want to believe...