All right, this is going to be a bit lengthy - I have a tendency to ramble on - so apologies up front. EDIT: The kidnapping happens on a Friday night approximately 8 pm so it is dark out and I was thinking March or April. No extreme weather. Two issues: I have a novel in progress in which a 7 year old female is kidnapped. The kidnapping is the result of a trick that the kidnapper plays, no force is involved and for all intents and purposes the evidence points to the child running away or getting lost, possibly trapped somewhere such as if she was to be playing hide'n'go seek and hides somewhere that she can't get out from. This happens in 1975, in North America, city undecided but it could be New York City/Toronto if that's important. The kidnapper knows where the child is and collects her, hides her away somewhere - nobody knows the girl has been kidnapped and this possibility does not occur to anyone for several hours, possibly two or three days even - long weekend and all. Plus the girl isn't from a rich or famous family like the Kennedys or the Rockfellers, not a lot of high level attention. Eventually even though there is never a ransom demand or any eye witnesses that see the girl disappear, police start to suspect a kidnapping - this comes about gradually after dozens of fruitless searches of the neighbourhood. Issue #1: Given that the kidnapper knows this is coming, does the kidnapper have to worry about the clothing the child was wearing when she was kidnapped? **This crime occurs in 1975 years before DNA.** The way I have written it, the kidnapper strips the girl while she's out from exhaustion, leaves her naked in a bare cell (think "Room") and disposes of the clothing in a fire pit, an incinerator, or just randomly in various garbage cans in the city. This takes care of hair fibres, fingerprints, I don't know....sweat stains? I'm not too concerned with anyone finding the discarded clothing in garbage cans because the disposal happens far away from her last known location and people will not be searching for her in that area, plus the trash pick up is the next day so realistically if someone sees a girl's shirt or a sock in a garbage can......are they going to put two and two together? Issue #2: Is there any practical reason why a 7 year old girl would dress in a certain way in 1975? Like, back then did all 7 year old girl wear denim jeans with t-shirts, or did they all wear dresses with tights and Mary Jane shoes? Other than the weather and dressing to stay warm, what would make a girl dress in a certain way? I don't think laundry comes into play - 7 year old girls don't care if their clothes are dirty, do they? I could see a girl with a princess fixation wanting to dress in frilly clothing, dresses or skirts with frills and ruffles; similarly I can see a tomboy type girl dressing in pants/jeans and a t-shirt. She doesn't attend a school that requires uniforms. Part of story is that the kidnapper has talked the child into playing a prank on her parents, pretending to run away, so I need some clothing that the child can pack and wear to give people that impression. My thought was basically jeans, t-shirt, sweater, underwear, socks, shoes. If girls in 1975 only get dressed to the nines for going to church and weddings, then someone could notice her "pretending" to run away but if girls are always running around in frilly dresses and black patent leather shoes....it might not even be noticed at all since she's dressed "normally." I did toy with the idea of the kidnapper manipulating her into packing other clothing items to confuse the trail but I don't want her lugging a 25 lbs backpack through the streets. I can't really see these as being huge deal breakers but I absolutely know that readers will tear this apart and if I've left a clue behind that a blind cop could see, I'm in for it! I don't want to resort to, "Well, the police are incompetent idiots." in the book. I want to make sure any evidence is simply not there to be found in the first place, or failing that to point the cops in the wrong direction.
http://www.wishbookweb.com/the-catalogs/ The above website gives some idea of the clothing that was available for people so I will have the ability to describe the outfits. I just need some idea of what a girl would wear.
Anyone else? Question #1/Issue #1 "Given that the kidnapper knows this is coming, does the kidnapper have to worry about the clothing the child was wearing when she was kidnapped?" Question #2/Issue #2 "Is there any practical reason why a 7 year old girl would dress in a certain way in 1975? Like, back then did all 7 year old girl wear denim jeans with t-shirts, or did they all wear dresses with tights and Mary Jane shoes? Other than the weather and dressing to stay warm, what would make a girl dress in a certain way? I don't think laundry comes into play - 7 year old girls don't care if their clothes are dirty, do they?"
I guess I can chalk this one up to being willfully blind. I assumed that girls in 1975 were the same as girls today and had choice about their clothing. Not true apparently. One of my friends said that her mother had to wear the clothes that her parents provided her with. So....that decided how she dressed. If her parents got her dresses and tights, then she wore dresses and tights. If they got her jeans and shirts, then she wore jeans and shirts, etc. What decided what outfit depended on what was clean....that one surprised me a little because I didn't think a 7 year old would care...true, but the parents did. Makes sense that the parents wanted their child to be dressed nicely in clean clothes. Damn.......that sort of throws a monkey wrench into my plan. The idea was that the girl was going to be tricked into running away, it was supposed to be a prank but the adult helping her took advantage of the situation to kidnap her......I wanted to leave a confused mess of clues behind, like the girl was supposed to wear the "wrong" clothes for running away while also packing a bag of the "right" clothes to take with her and leave a mess for the cops to investigate, "Who the heck wears their Sunday church dress to run away??" and during the first part of the investigation, the cops are supposed to think that the girl has gotten trapped somewhere playing hide'n'go seek so, "Who the heck wears a red dress with white tights to play hide'n'go seek? How does she hide in that outfit??" Hmm.....the girl is going to have to be coached by the adult helper into what she is supposed to wear and pack. This is more involved than I wanted that adult to be but.....not a huge deal.
Parents had a lot more to say about what the kids wore in the 70's. Especially at that age. However, is she's not from a "rich" family she's more apt to wear jeans and t shirt. I don't get the tricking her to pack clothes? I had to read what your goal is a couple of times as it gets confusing. The "trick" should be more of who is she playing hide and seek with. Since that would lead the police to search places that kids might hide, think car trunks, abandoned refrigerators.... In those days kids were told to listen and obey adults. Bad people offered you candy and drove vans. Just my thoughts but I can see " confused mess of clues" where the cops are trying to figure out who the friend is. Her other friends/family never met XXX they were her "secret or new" friend. Just a thought.
It all depends really. My mother who was dirt poor took great pains to buy me the dresses she never had. I was dressed in them quite steady till I was about six or seven but I hated dresses and was a tomboy who liked climbing trees, and twirling on the jungle bars at school. She eventually caved and allowed me to buy cords and t shirts. I was born in 1976. I collect old memorabilia from the 70s and it's definitely a mix - dresses with frills and smocking, or slacks and blouses or appliqued tops, or a jumper over a shirt. Or just jeans and a t shirt - with sparkly iron ons. The material is usually polyester or jersey or some heavy synthetic. Think about the characters involved, their income bracket, their neighborhood. In the 80s even though denim was king there was still this girl, her father was an architect - who came to school in dresses and skirts and pantyhose, she was the only eleven year old wearing pantyhose and carrying a purse and she wasn't even the richest girl in class. Clothes cost more then. My family had to use layaway a lot. So clothes really weren't chosen lightly they had to last, and there were distinctions between play clothes and good clothes.
First up, thanks! I was hoping for more replies. Second, to answer: There are two twists here: #1, the kidnapper is a female who is #2 a sexual predator - they do exist but til the 2000's weren't really on anyone's radar. Just google "mother daughter sexual abuse" if you want to get an idea of how prevalent this was - it's usually only the last two decades that has been discussed openly. The fact that Anna is a sexual predator is going to become more prominent in the future and her manner of staying under the radar is being a smart predator and also relying on the fact she is a female to get away with things. I don't know if I ever want Anna to be looked at for Mary's disappearance but if she is, it will be in like 2010 or 2015 so it will be decades after the kidnapping. The idea is that 7 year old Mary is having a conflict with her mom over something like cleaning her room and she wants to teach her mom a lesson by running away - the running away is supposed to be a prank that Anna, the babysitter of Mary's 6 year old friend Linda helps her to do. The manner in which I have this happening in my...fifth revision is to have Mary come downstairs on a Friday night and show her parents her church outfit which is white tights, black dress and twirl for her parents, 'Lookit how pretty I am!" and then go to bed. This is the last outfit her parents see her in and what they will tell the cops. So...Mary's bedroom is on the 2nd floor, her parents are watching tv in the basement and Mary sneaks out of the house. She leaves the house at about 8:30, 9 pm whatever and goes across the street to where Anna's car is parked in front of Linda's house as Anna is babysitting that night. Anna has left her trunk unlatched and Mary sneaks inside the vehicle and closes the trunk behind her. There is NO contact between Anna and Mary on Friday night. Anna leaves Linda's house at say, 10 pm and walks to her car. As she passes the trunk, she presses down on it to make sure it is securely latched and drives off. Anna at this point can say she does not know that Mary is in her trunk, she has plausible deniability if she's pulled over by the cops and search for erratic driving or in an accident of some kind. Anna drives home, parks in the garage, closes the door and opens the trunk to find the unconscious girl in her trunk and carries her out of the trunk, into her house and into a secret bunker. Undresses the girl and leaves her naked on the room's lone cot. She takes the clothing and adds it to the bag Mary has brought with her which just has...two days change of clothing. At this point: Mary doesn't know where she is. She was in Anna's vehicle trunk and now she's in a concrete room on a cot. She doesn't know who put her there, she never saw Anna on Friday night. Anna never had contact with Mary on Friday night, not that anyone witnessed. Mary was unconscious when Anna carried her into the hidden bunker. She does have Mary's bag and her clothing in her possession, not to mention the actual child but nobody has witnessed this and nobody has any reason to suspect her. Anna does have Mary's hair, DNA, sweat, fibres, etc on her but she can easily deal with this by destroying her clothing and taking a very, very long and intense shower. Also in 1975, DNA was not on anyone's radar at all. The next day, Mary's parents are going to assume she is sleeping in and then went out to play without them knowing. Anna will be back to babysit Linda and the two of them will go to the local playground where they play games - tag, monster tag, hide'n'seek, etc for a few hours then they walk back to Linda's house and encounter her father outside the house calling for Mary. His assumption at this point is that Mary is out in the neighbourhood somewhere playing. Her parents are not supposed to realize that Mary is actually missing until late afternoon at which point the cops get called. So cops show up at say 5 pm and start investigating - when did you see her last? what was she wearing? what's missing? who did she play with normally? where did she play? etc. From the time Mary disappeared to the time the cops actually start looking is around 17 or 18 hours. Absolutely, totally random, I want her parents to be able to say that her favourite doll, her church outfit, her favourite jeans, a couple of shirts, a skirt, etc are missing. I'm sure that when you're 7 years old and your parents do your laundry, they know exactly what clothes you have so they can tell the cops what's missing. They might not know exactly that you have 15 pairs of white socks but they can certainly say that their daughter has some black socks, some white socks probably less than 12 and there are 8 pairs in her dresser plus one pair in the hamper, means that there are probably two or three pairs missing etc. Same for any other articles of clothing. The investigation can start trying to pin down where she is, wondering if she was participating in the game of hide'n'seek even though nobody remembers her there - how accurate are kids memories, etc. Anna isn't supposed to show up on the suspect list at all - she never had contact with Mary on Friday night when she was last seen or on Saturday that she says and 10 kids can verify. Even if the detectives make a list of all the people in Mary's life - every babysitter, neighbour, teacher, friend's family etc that she had contact with, none of them should set off any alarm bells. Anna also never babysat Mary. Plus Anna followed her normal routine on Saturday. She didn't call in sick or anything so there's nothing to make the detectives wonder about her. The investigation will end up searching the neighbourhood multiple times, thinking that Mary is trapped somewhere playing hide'n'seek like in an abandoned vehicle's trunk or a garbage can and nothing will ever turn up. Then the missing clothing is examined and the cops start wondering if she ran away which is sort of dismissed at first - "...at 7 years old?? It's normally teenagers that run away!" but the clothing argues against this and then finally, kidnapping shows up on the radar but gets dismissed without a ransom note so the investigation keeps being considered a missing persons case and when repeated searches of the neighbourhood turn up nothing, it dies out. Mary is actually miles away in Anna's hidden bunker and being kept as a prisoner - nobody knows this. I like the way it's shaping up. Every other sexual predator/kidnapper I have heard of is male so that is one unique twist to this story. The only female kidnappers I have heard of are those that lost their own children somehow and kidnapped a different child as a replacement for their own loss.
First up, thanks! I was hoping for more replies! Second: I was born in 1973 - I'm 47. I do remember the good clothes for school and the play clothes but it wasn't a big deal for me as I preferred to read my books/comics or watch tv than play outside with the neighbourhood kids. I am curious, your classmate that came to school in dresses and skirts and pantyhose, you mentioned that she was only 11 and wearing pantyhose....I'm not sure I follow why this is significant. Was pantyhose an adult thing or something? I always assumed that girls wore things like pantyhose/tights/leggings/stockings/whatever else over their legs to keep warm when they wore dresses and skirts...it did seem odd that they couldn't just wear pants if they were cold but I never thought to ask anyone back then, I just assumed it was one of those things that made girls "a mystery" to boys. EDIT: the other article of clothing I've read of is leotards. I'm still so puzzled by those clothing names because they all seem to be the same thing when I read the descriptions.
