*Edited for referencing someone by name.*

Disappearances happen all the time in the United States, so why is this one nationally newsworthy? This girl is cute, young, and blonde. It fits the trend for major national missing persons stories. It’s sad, but true. The second thing of note is that this is a heavy metal concert–Metallica specifically–which will fuel a whiplash from censorship freaks, concerned parents, and Tipper Gore, with their holier than thou attitudes. Interest groups will interpret all lyrics with bias, attempting to extract meaning that simply isn’t there. I kind of expect another national dialog on the so-called corrupting powers of music, perhaps not on the scale that we saw after Columbine, but perhaps what we saw in the 1980’s after Judas Priest was accused of influencing someone who was already mentally disturbed and should have been a sanitarium to commit suicide. Moreover, Charlottesville will want to bury this story. It’s a small city with a lot of wealthy white people and is constantly on the top places to live in the U.S. lists. A disappearance case can really blacken the city’s national reputation.

Police have searched the woods in around JPJ today, most recently around the baseball field and track. They suspect she was taken against her will. Parking lots around the arena are notorious places to get mugged. There isn’t a whole lot of crime in Charlottesville, but it is a small city of about 50,000 people. As a result, there are certainly bad seeds and distrustful people around. It takes some kind of monster to kidnap someone, commit assult and battery, and possibly murder a person. If the perpetrator is caught, he should be unforgiven for his crimes. Accomplices should be unforgiven too. Her parents must have felt really frantic in the last few days not knowing where their daughter is–whether she is safe or even alive. They must be on the frayed ends of sanity. You know, the terrible thing is that if she was allowed back in the JPJ, she’d still be alive. This is just a thing that should not be. There are a lot of crazy people in this world, those who commit crimes and show no remorse. I’m hoping the media doesn’t go out of control in trying to find a scapegoat in what amounts to an anomalous crime. Maybe she’ll turn up and get a great big welcome home from her friends and family.