A family comes to grips with the unthinkable…

A family on the coast, their little boy, kidnapped. Someone grabbed him after school.

It’s still sketchy. The cops aren’t sure, but it is unimaginably frightening.

Who knows why they agreed to this. But we had a writer who knew the parents. She was one of those sympathetic, genuine people who could talk to anybody about anything. So she asked them: What if one of our people came to stay with you?

For the next three days, Cory Jo Lancaster will live with the family. She’ll be there when the phone rings, when the police come, when they learn the truth.

It began with a photo in the local paper. Junny Rios-Martinez, a blond-headed, 11-year-old in a surfer’s t-shirt. Later, there was a message on the phone. A reporter thought the kid might make a good story. He showed up to talk. He had a photo ID.

Eventually, he would say he was no longer a newspaper reporter, that he’d left for a better job with a surfing magazine. And, now, he could probably get the kid some bling, maybe even some endorsements.

He ran a long string and the parents bought it.

The kid would get some money up-front. There’d be some travel. There were contracts to sign.

The boy’s mom didn’t feel completely right about it, but it seemed ok. The writer, Mark Dean was his name, always knew the right thing to say to put them at ease.

But they had some final questions. They needed to be sure. So they told Mark to come back.

That was the day their boy disappeared.

The cops didn’t know any Mark Dean. But they did know Mark Dean Schwab. And now the fear began to set in.

Schwab was just out of prison for molesting a kid. A kid he brought him home afterward.

The cops have a photo of Schwab. It’s him. Schwab’s been free for just three weeks, after serving three years of an eight-year sentence.

Cory Jo is there while the parents talk about their worst fears. She’s there as the phone rings, over and over and over again. Neighbors. Family. Police.

Night comes and goes. No one sleeps.

An FBI agent arrives. He’ll stay for days. His presence makes it all the more real. The fears are inescapable. The parents tell themselves… he’ll bring our boy back. Dad burns through cigarettes and Pepsi. Mom wants to talk with a psychic.

One guy knew all along it was too good to be true. A 12-year-old, the best friend. He kept saying, there’s no way this is for real.

Cops are in and out. Their faces tell the tale. The FBI guy’s advice — stop answering the phone. Get all these people out of here.

Hope, revulsion, emptiness, images of agonizing violence. What if he has AIDS?

A crisis counselor takes the parents into a back room.

It’s been four days now. Mom sits on her son’s bed, staring at the posters on the wall, the framed photo of him in that surfer shirt, the one that started all this.

Then the police call. They’ve got Schwab.

He’s alone.

It will be another two days before he leads police to the footlocker. Middle of the night, in a downpour, he relents, shows them the truth.

Cory Jo will quietly leave the house. In a few days, there will be a funeral and more than 1,500 people will be there.

Schwab was executed. Florida passed a law that prohibits molesters from getting early release. They named the law after little Junny.

This post was first published on April, 22, 2014.