The Silicon Valley Mercury News claims that “such horrors are relatively rare.”

Would that that were true. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:

The U.S. Department of Justice reports

• 797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
• 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
• 58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
• 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)

[Andrea J. Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana J. Schultz. U.S. Department of Justice. "National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview" in National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2002, page 5.]

That’s more than three-quarters of a million children who are lost each year. And have no illusions about the 400,000 or so kids in that 797,500 who are apparently runaways—they are NOT just “liberated” from the bounds of a loving family for the fun of it. Many are escaping abusive situations. Many are probably abducted, but no evidence of the abduction was ever found.