I had not heard of the missing children either. That is awful!
When I think that when I was just a small child - 1st grade on up, I walked almost a mile to school mostly all by myself. Sometimes I walked with friends also. Everyone walked to school back then, we only had one car in our family and dad needed that one for work. My mother use to send me to the grocery at the corner of our street. I had to cross a busy street (no signals back then either). I would hand the grocer the list and he would get what my mom needed, write it in a book and I would return home. Mom paid the grocer (in cash) at the 1st of every month when dad got paid. No one worried about being molested or abducted back then (or I was unaware that such things happened).