8-year-old boy killed

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I agree.

Yet, giving a child this type of freedom has always come with risks. Kids got abducted and murdered when I was a kid despite the freedom we were given. And my parents didn't give us the ultimate freedom. We were allowed to roam the neighborhood while playing different sports. We weren't allowed to hang out at each other's houses without parental supervision, be around adults without preapproval, or be in any environment that could defy the freedom our parents gave us.

Before the information superhighway, what happened to this 8 year old boy would not have been on my 7:00am news and on the Internet-accessible news agencies.

This is so sad. Apparently he took him out of town, hung out with him, and even made him lunch. It wasn't until he realized how extensive the search effort was that he panicked and killed the little boy.

One thing to know about this neighborhood is that it's extremely homogeneous and close-knit and, frankly, a little insular. It's probably one of the safest neighborhoods in Brooklyn in part because "outsiders" are not trusted. Thousands of Orthodox Jews from all over the Tri-state area volunteered and scoured the neighborhood within hours of his being reported missing. I did not know it had made the national news--where was Nancy Grace?

The killer, who's given his confession, is also Ultra-Orthodox (I'm not sure if they're Hasidic), and I'm sure that was a factor in why the little boy approached him. He most certainly would not have reached out to someone who did not look like he was "of the community."