The
kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Mary Beatrice Perez didn't focus the
nation's stunned gaze on San Antonio. No
national talk shows or investigative reports surrounding her disappearance
or the discovery of her body.
Even
in San Antonio where the throes of attention surrounded 'Fiesta' Only a
handful of people joined the Heidi Search Center in the search for her.
Her picture was not plastered on the front page of the local paper, but
the news was buried in the Metro section of our paper.
.
Every
day a child is murdered without national attention in this country. The
bodies of a girl, 3, and her 2 year-old brother were found in a creek in
Central Texas. Do we know their names?
Yet
it's the spectacular mass murder of children in school
shootings that stops the nation in its tracks and forces it into
days of searching for answers.
The
murder of Mary B., last seen alive in Market Square the night of April
18, should diminish the nation as much as the massacre of a dozen students
and a teacher in Littleton, Colo.
The
murdered children of Littleton will be remembered long after the murdered
child of San Antonio is forgotten. A memorial will be built for them,
but not for the murdered child/children in San Antonio. No on line
ribbons will grace pages to remember Mary B. -- just this little page tucked
away among millions.
They
die alone.
As
America lost so much in a high school in Colorado, we lost much in
San Antonio. Her name was Mary Beatrice Perez. She has joined the
names of so many other children in small white caskets long forgotten.