Minnesota Prairie Roots

A sense of security and trust has been eroded in small towns like Morgan, above, after the abduction of a teen from nearby Fairfax. The girl was found near Morgan.

UP UNTIL YESTERDAY, Fairfax was just another sleepy little town in a string of small towns along State Highway 19 in southern Minnesota.

That all changed when a 14-year-old newspaper delivery girl was abducted Tuesday morning from this community of nearly 1,300. According to news reports, the teen managed to escape her alleged 25-year-old kidnapper by jumping from his moving car. She then used her cell phone to call her mom.

The girl, who was reportedly sexually-assaulted, was found 10 miles south of Fairfax in Brown County. Her alleged abductor, a Marshall man with ties to Fairfax, has been arrested.

For families who live in the Fairfax area, especially, this crime has come as quite a shock, according to my cousin Dawn. She lives in nearby Morgan and tells me the abducted teen was found just miles from that farming community.

Dawn suspects that the man likely drove through Morgan en route to his Marshall apartment. She’s probably right. If you dig out a map and pick the most logical route west, you would drive right through Morgan to Marshall.

All of this has left my cousin, the mother of five, shaken. But it is her 12-year-old daughter who has been most impacted. “I think she put it together that as she walked to school yesterday morning, he (the alleged kidnapper) was probably driving through town…She refused to walk to school this morning. We are one block from the school. I believe everyone is pretty shocked around here.”

Dawn tells me, though, that her community had a wake-up call several months ago when a Level 3 sex offender moved onto a farm place several miles from town. Neighbors no longer leave their children alone or allow them to walk anywhere without an adult.

“I don’t know if it’s because in a small town you typically know everyone and are so trusting that when something like this happens we get even more paranoid,” Dawn says.

Yet, despite the fears she is now dealing with among her children and her diminished sense of security, Dawn is focusing on the 14-year-old who managed to escape her kidnapper. “I guess we are all so happy she was able to get out of that car.”

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling