Toddler disappears from a home in Texas

        In a Texas home Sabrina Benitez was watching "Toy Story" with her 18-month-old son, Joshua shortly before 8 p.m. Friday when he left the room, heading toward where six other adults and another child were. About 10 minutes later, when the boy hadn't come back, Benitez asked the others about his whereabouts. Joshua was not found and the police were called. Benitez said she believes the boy was abducted  insisting it would have been all but impossible for her boy to go outside. Even if he did, Benitez said, the toddler would have been smart enough to try to get back in or would have been spotted by now. Police Lt. Penshorn said that the police don't think anyone at the house took the child. No Amber Alert has been issued for Joshua because such an alert typically requires solid evidence that an abduction took place. "If for some reason somebody came and took that child, not only would the people inside have seen the child leave the residence, but they would have seen somebody come inside and take him," Penshorn said. "They had scent dogs out here, and (they) said there was no scent of him leaving the yard."
        I personally side with the police officer and predict that the child was not abducted. This is mainly because in a house full of adults an intruder would be hard-pressed to avoid all of them in order to kidnap the child. I also believe this because I think the mother's comments are somewhat biased. This is because most mothers fear their child getting kidnapped. It also because the mother belief that the child would have been smart enough to return is somewhat overestimating an 18-month-old child.
        This article's popularity on cnn's newspulse was expected because of the seriousness of the issue and the curiosity of how a toddler could disappear from a house full of adults, but the comments on cnn.com were not what I expected. There were more sympathetic comments on the previous article I blogged about, which was about 400 people who lost their SuperBowl seats, which I find strange considering that I think this story is far more serious. There were the usual few paranoid comments stating that the mother and the family probably somehow caused the death of the child and now is trying to cover it up by contacting the police and saying that their child disappeared. I find this highly unlikely because ,even though something like this occasionally happens, there were seven adults in the house. This means all seven would be in on it, which is very unlikely. There were also many accusatory comments directed toward the parents, which I find unfair because even in the best circumstances accidents happen. Most surprising of all the number of insensitive comments such as "He's probably off somewhere doing some e-trading."