Literally makes me sick to my stomach

**Serious warning - you may not want to read this if you have kids or are upset by news stories involving children**

There's a news story right now that all but makes me cry when I read it. So far, as best as officials can figure, a man kidnapped his 8-year old daughter from his estranged husband, rented a small plane, stuck the kid inside, and then crashed them both inside the plane into his ex-mother-in-laws house, killing them both. (I'd put down the link, but this story bothers me so greatly, I just can't.)

4 or 5 years ago, this story would've prompted an intellectually driven reaction along the lines of "Wow, that is really fucked up!" In fact, the reaction may have been even stronger than that, having done a lot of flying myself back in the day, and knowing the sickening, heart-pounding, immediate cold sweat sensation you get when the engine suddenly races from the aircraft being pointed in some unususal attitude, or the sound of the engine dying, or having to make an emergency landing.

But now I have a kid. And as much as I occasionally honestly do want to put her on the corner with a FREE sign taped to her t-shirt, reading this story totally kills me, on a handfull of different levels.

** Stealing your own kid to get back at your ex-wife? Using your child as a pawn?!? To be that out of touch? I just can't grasp it.
** To kill not only yourself, BUT YOUR CHILD AS WELL? And not in any quick and painless sort of way, but by aiming your plane into a building?!?! JEsus, the absolute terror that kid must have felt watching the whole thing unfold. Even an eight year old would get the seriousness of what was happening, and the sound of the plane, and that sense that something was wrong -- I can imagine her screaming.....
** Being the mom, calling the police to report that your child is missing at the same time the police are receiving reports that this mand and child just crashed into a building; having your day start out with "Those socks don't match" and "What do you want for dinner tonight?" and having it end with "Your child is dead from an airplane wreck, most likely at the hands of your ex husband."

What is is about some grown ups?!? It seems like this last year or so has just been full of stories of kids being a bused if not outright killed. I mean FULL. Incredibly freaky and bizarre and over the top and disgusting stories of parents dropping their kids in the SF bay, or killing them and hiding the bodies in the washing machine, or leaving your kids in the snow overnight because they wouldn't stop crying; or foster parents locking their kids up in cages, or the woman who used her 4-month old son like a bat to hit her boyfriend, fracturing his skull; the child abductors and molestors -- this repulsive list just goes on and on.

Husband agrees that all of this is terrible, terrible news, but that there is the possibility that there's actually not an increse in this sort of horrifying activity, but that maybe the media just gets wind of more of it and makes more of it public news; less of it is hidden from the public eye. He may have a point, but it sure doesn't make me any less likely to drop what I'm doing, run over to Mags - even when she's out on the corner wearing her sign - and hold her as tight as I can.

And I know there is part of me that hopes that all those other children can feel that same hug too.