DAYTON, IA. — The people of this small, agricultural town in central Iowa have banded together often in times of crisis. Through the years, the embrace of friends and family have made the horrors of cancer, house fires and car wrecks more tolerable. Yet as the search for abducted teenager Kathlynn Shepard stretches into its seventh day, residents find themselves in an unfamiliar position. Like the people of Moore, Okla., where a massive tornado took the lives of 24 on Monday, the town is grieving. But what happened to 15-year-old Kathlynn can’t be explained as “an act of God” and has caused Dayton residents to question whether the violation of trust has forever changed the town.
“This was the evil of man; pure evil,” said Sharla Coleson, whose daughter has been a classmate of Kathlynn. “I think we’re horrified that something like this would happen in small, rural Iowa. All of us, I think, are still in shock.” The streets of Dayton are lined with yellow signs, urging “Caution — Children at play.” Teens spend their summers at an algae-covered swimming hole. Students leave their bikes unlocked outside the town’s elementary school.
“We’re a community where you can say: Come home when the streetlights come on,” explained Kendra Breitsprecher, editor of the Dayton Leader, an online newspaper.
But chains blocked off the street in front of the elementary school on Friday, a new security measure.
And Theresa Hagge, 56, met her grandkids at their bus stop after school.
The children live near the Shepards. Their parents no longer feel safe letting the youngsters walk home alone, Hagge said. The trek includes the same stretch of road where police say registered sex offender Michael J. Klunder lured Shepard and another girl, 12-year-old Dezi Hughes, into his pickup truck.
Hughes later escaped. Police say Klunder, who displayed a gun used to euthanize livestock during the kidnapping, hanged himself about four hours after the abduction.
Shepard remains missing.Blood found on the tailgate of Klunder’s truck and at a nearby hog confinement indicate the girl was injured, police say.Many in town fear the worst. “It’s rocked our lives,” Hagge said of the abduction. “You wonder now: Where do we go from here? Do our kids get to be normal?”
Angst and caution, just like Evansdale'They believed all people were good'
The kidnapping and unknown fate of Shepard is frightening for parents and children across the state, but for the 837 residents of Dayton, the tragedy strikes the heart of their community.
Fear, anger, distrust and sadness are common feelings for people experiencing this kind of ordeal, psychologists say. And if disagreements and distress take hold, a town can suffer collective trauma, and a loss of communality, said Jack Saul, a psychologist at Columbia University and the director of the International Trauma Studies Program in New York City.In Dayton, many say the tragedy has brought the town closer together over the past week.But uncertainty also remains, said Arhiana Shek, pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Dayton. “This is not something that happened just to Kathlynn and her family or to Dezi and her family; this happened to the whole town,” Shek said. “The community is in pain.”
Last summer, a similar cloud of anxiety hung over the northeast Iowa town of Evansdale, where cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, disappeared while riding their bikes July 13. Their bodies weren’t discovered for nearly five months. No arrests have been made in connection with their murders. In the days and weeks after the disappearance, the Evansdale skate park and playground were empty, and few children were seen on the streets, community members said. Today, kids are out and about “being kids,” but there’s a greater emphasis on safety, said Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock.
Parents often make sure an adult is watching while kids play outside, he said. Children no longer walk to school alone or in pairs. Now they walk in groups. “A lot of times as parents, in the hustle and bustle of life, we can sometimes become detached,” Smock said. “We’re seeing a lot more parents spend more time with their kids.” Many others in town have adopted a similar attitude, she said. Kids stuck close to their parents Thursday night at a youth baseball game in Dayton, she observed. “And that’s not typical,” King said. “Here, if you go to a football game or something, everybody lets their kids run. At the end of the night, you just track them down and head home.” Dayton is the type of place where two young girls would be eager to accept an offer to mow someone’s lawn — the ploy police say Klunder used in his abduction.
Kids in the small town have been taught not to take candy from strangers, or leave with someone they don’t know to look for a puppy, said Joanne Nemechek, 55, who grew up near the abduction site. But helping a man who appears to be a neighbor? Earning a little extra spending money?
Those things are celebrated in Dayton, she said.“He hit us where it hurts,” said Nemechek,who lives and works in town. “They were young and inexperienced. They believed all people were good, because in Dayton, people are good.“It’s hard to undo that kind of hurt,” she added.
Yet the people of Dayton are fighting back. Less than 24 hours after news of Shepard’s disappearance broke, residents started stuffing cash into a coffee can at the Dayton Community Grocery. A formal fund to benefit the Shepard family has since been established.Hundreds have joined search parties or helped feed rescue workers. Others made and distributed purple ribbon label pins, encouraging the town to “keep the faith.” A sign erected near Emanuel Lutheran offers a one-word entreaty: Pray.
“What’s been going on here shows you just how communities pull together,” said Webster County Sheriff James Stubbs. The healing process won’t happen overnight, said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor.“Communities need time to heal and to regain a sense of stability, trust and confidence after such an experience,” he said. In good times and in bad, the people of Dayton have always banded together, said Heidner, who owns a nail salon in town.
“I think in the end we’re going to be stronger; I think we’re going to be closer,” she said. “It’s true, we probably lost some of that sense of trust. But we’re just going to hug our kids a little harder and keep going.”
Many in town are still coming to terms with the ugliness of the threat revealed last week.
Oscar Dorman said his Dayton neighbors rallied around him 30 years ago when his son, daughter-in-law and grandson were killed in a car wreck in the nearby town of Lehigh.
“It was painful, but you could understand it,” Dorman said. “This is something totally different.”
Schools are required to have fire and tornado drills annually, Superintendent Launi Dane told parents in a letter posted on the website for the Southeast Webster Grand District, which serves Dayton and six other communities. Picking up the pieces after a man-made disaster is a more difficult task, Dane said.
“(I) thought I knew all of the different types of scenarios that we could/should address,” Dane wrote. “But to my sadness there will always be more.”
In response, a Dayton local wrote this article.
“This was the evil of man; pure evil,” said Sharla Coleson, whose daughter has been a classmate of Kathlynn. “I think we’re horrified that something like this would happen in small, rural Iowa. All of us, I think, are still in shock.” The streets of Dayton are lined with yellow signs, urging “Caution — Children at play.” Teens spend their summers at an algae-covered swimming hole. Students leave their bikes unlocked outside the town’s elementary school.
“We’re a community where you can say: Come home when the streetlights come on,” explained Kendra Breitsprecher, editor of the Dayton Leader, an online newspaper.
But chains blocked off the street in front of the elementary school on Friday, a new security measure.
And Theresa Hagge, 56, met her grandkids at their bus stop after school.
The children live near the Shepards. Their parents no longer feel safe letting the youngsters walk home alone, Hagge said. The trek includes the same stretch of road where police say registered sex offender Michael J. Klunder lured Shepard and another girl, 12-year-old Dezi Hughes, into his pickup truck.
Hughes later escaped. Police say Klunder, who displayed a gun used to euthanize livestock during the kidnapping, hanged himself about four hours after the abduction.
Shepard remains missing.Blood found on the tailgate of Klunder’s truck and at a nearby hog confinement indicate the girl was injured, police say.Many in town fear the worst. “It’s rocked our lives,” Hagge said of the abduction. “You wonder now: Where do we go from here? Do our kids get to be normal?”
Angst and caution, just like Evansdale'They believed all people were good'
The kidnapping and unknown fate of Shepard is frightening for parents and children across the state, but for the 837 residents of Dayton, the tragedy strikes the heart of their community.
Fear, anger, distrust and sadness are common feelings for people experiencing this kind of ordeal, psychologists say. And if disagreements and distress take hold, a town can suffer collective trauma, and a loss of communality, said Jack Saul, a psychologist at Columbia University and the director of the International Trauma Studies Program in New York City.In Dayton, many say the tragedy has brought the town closer together over the past week.But uncertainty also remains, said Arhiana Shek, pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Dayton. “This is not something that happened just to Kathlynn and her family or to Dezi and her family; this happened to the whole town,” Shek said. “The community is in pain.”
Last summer, a similar cloud of anxiety hung over the northeast Iowa town of Evansdale, where cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, disappeared while riding their bikes July 13. Their bodies weren’t discovered for nearly five months. No arrests have been made in connection with their murders. In the days and weeks after the disappearance, the Evansdale skate park and playground were empty, and few children were seen on the streets, community members said. Today, kids are out and about “being kids,” but there’s a greater emphasis on safety, said Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock.
Parents often make sure an adult is watching while kids play outside, he said. Children no longer walk to school alone or in pairs. Now they walk in groups. “A lot of times as parents, in the hustle and bustle of life, we can sometimes become detached,” Smock said. “We’re seeing a lot more parents spend more time with their kids.” Many others in town have adopted a similar attitude, she said. Kids stuck close to their parents Thursday night at a youth baseball game in Dayton, she observed. “And that’s not typical,” King said. “Here, if you go to a football game or something, everybody lets their kids run. At the end of the night, you just track them down and head home.” Dayton is the type of place where two young girls would be eager to accept an offer to mow someone’s lawn — the ploy police say Klunder used in his abduction.
Kids in the small town have been taught not to take candy from strangers, or leave with someone they don’t know to look for a puppy, said Joanne Nemechek, 55, who grew up near the abduction site. But helping a man who appears to be a neighbor? Earning a little extra spending money?
Those things are celebrated in Dayton, she said.“He hit us where it hurts,” said Nemechek,who lives and works in town. “They were young and inexperienced. They believed all people were good, because in Dayton, people are good.“It’s hard to undo that kind of hurt,” she added.
Yet the people of Dayton are fighting back. Less than 24 hours after news of Shepard’s disappearance broke, residents started stuffing cash into a coffee can at the Dayton Community Grocery. A formal fund to benefit the Shepard family has since been established.Hundreds have joined search parties or helped feed rescue workers. Others made and distributed purple ribbon label pins, encouraging the town to “keep the faith.” A sign erected near Emanuel Lutheran offers a one-word entreaty: Pray.
“What’s been going on here shows you just how communities pull together,” said Webster County Sheriff James Stubbs. The healing process won’t happen overnight, said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor.“Communities need time to heal and to regain a sense of stability, trust and confidence after such an experience,” he said. In good times and in bad, the people of Dayton have always banded together, said Heidner, who owns a nail salon in town.
“I think in the end we’re going to be stronger; I think we’re going to be closer,” she said. “It’s true, we probably lost some of that sense of trust. But we’re just going to hug our kids a little harder and keep going.”
Many in town are still coming to terms with the ugliness of the threat revealed last week.
Oscar Dorman said his Dayton neighbors rallied around him 30 years ago when his son, daughter-in-law and grandson were killed in a car wreck in the nearby town of Lehigh.
“It was painful, but you could understand it,” Dorman said. “This is something totally different.”
Schools are required to have fire and tornado drills annually, Superintendent Launi Dane told parents in a letter posted on the website for the Southeast Webster Grand District, which serves Dayton and six other communities. Picking up the pieces after a man-made disaster is a more difficult task, Dane said.
“(I) thought I knew all of the different types of scenarios that we could/should address,” Dane wrote. “But to my sadness there will always be more.”
In response, a Dayton local wrote this article.
The Day Evil Came to
Dayton We Will Not BeDestroyed
There are times in our
lives when something so monumental happens that we can remember the day, the
time and what we were doing when we heard the news. May 20, 2013 will forever
remain as a hole in my heart. The day evil came to Dayton and tried to
destroy us. We will all remember what we were doing when we heard.
My daughter, a member of the Lehigh Fire Department, called me that evening to
say they were need to search for a missing girl. I was in shock and could
not believe someone had attempted this in our small, tight-knit community.
My purpose here is to
focus on the positives of this terrible event. Because we are such a small
community everyone knows everyone. We are friendly; we are
trusting. When hard times fall on us, we stick together. It becomes
personal to each one o us. We show up in droves to
help search. We volunteer our time to help in anyway we can; by
donating food, helping feed the searchers, bringing our four-wheelers and
horses to help search, organizing a prayer service, and painting this town
purple. We support the Shepherd family and commend Dezi for
her bravery. They are one of us! The same is true for
the dozens-upon-dozens of law enforcement personnel that converged on our small
town. From our City Police Officer Nick Dunbar; to Highway Patrol Sgt.
Kelly Hindman who grew up here in Dayton; to all the surrounding area fire
departments and law enforcement personnel; all the way up to the DCI, finding
Kathlynn was personal. Each and every one of them deserves a handshake, a
hug, and a heartfelt thank you! We may change a few
things we do from here on out. We may protect our children indifferent
ways. We may be more aware, and less trusting. But for Dayton,
failure is not an option! We have not lost. We will continue
to support each other and maintain the atmosphere of our small-town way of life.
We will remember the day evil came to town, but we will not let it destroy us. Pamela Clancy Dayton
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