A Missing Child of the 1980s, All Grown UpScott Rankin’s father hatched an elaborate plot to kidnap him and start a secret life, while his mother searched desperately for six years. That was only the start of Scott’s traumatic life journey.
One morning in 1984, the school principal walked into the classroom where I taught fourth grade and whispered to me, “Scott is a missing child!” I looked at 9-year-old Scott, who was present in my class that day. I was quite aware what was implied. The term “missing child” had been seared into the nation’s psyche in the 1980s following a few high-profile cases, including the kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979. None of us at the school had any idea that Scott had been kidnapped from his own home just a few months before Patz. The principal explained that Scott had been kidnapped by his father, and over the past six years, including the four-plus he’d been enrolled in our school, his mother, who lived on the other side of the country, had been desperately searching for him. I did paunot know the depth of the story beginning to unfold. It would be weeks before I understood the immediate implications for Scott and his family — and decades before I learned of the full dimensions of Scott’s remarkable experience.
12/29/78, I picked up Scott on time. Martha knows nothing. Today is the day…I have reached the point of no return. — Entry in Scott’s father’s journal... |
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