Runaway/Missing/True Crime I confess: I am obsessed with missing person/true crime stories. When Jennifer Wilbanks went missing, I was on the case, primarily because I was convinced, as soon as I saw her picture, that she was a runaway and not an abducted woman. I followed the Elizabeth Smart case and persist in believing that the Groene children are alive. Since my first job out of college, as the editor of police trade magazines, I have read true crime stories avidly. I even hired a freelance writer to interview Richard Speck for the magazines in 1976.
So when Natalee Holloway went missing, I entered my usual information gathering mode. What amazed me was that I immediately was addicted, along with thousands - maybe even hundreds of thousands - of others. Why? I think I know. This could have happened to me. It could happen to my daughter, her friends, my friends. You meet a guy on vacation. He is an honors student, his dad is judge, he is going to school in the states, he speaks three languages, he is a champion athlete. I would have gone to the beach with him. I'm guessing a lot of other women would have too. And we too could be missing, probably dead, now, with teams of hundreds unable to find us on a tiny island in the Caribbean. Pretty terrifying, and enough to hold my attention for another day.  ¶ 4:20 PM