Bumping for Michael.
I went to the CBS archives as another poster recommended. The clip is 2 months after the disappearance, some interesting details:
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categori...-in-canada/michael-dunahee-victoria-1991.html
As far as the 'could they see him' debate, the park seems to be a wide open field with no big trees or meaningful visual obstructions from the sports area to the children's playground. The playground is pretty small, similar in size to what we now call tot lots in my area.
The video starts with the parents in the parking lot. The mom gestures across the parking lot and says, "He went off around behind the cars, towards the park." The reporter asks if they know he made it there, and she answers, "We didn't see him at the park, no."
The mom says that she told him not to go off with the kids there, b/c she did not know whose kids they were, and to watch out for cars on his way back (I don't understand that, b/c he would have walked to them on the field where mom was playing, not back to the parked car, but it may have just been a slip of the tongue).
The reporter says, "So that's the last memory you have of him?" and she nods and says "mm hmm."
Cut to the father on a small mound in the park itself. I find him hard to understand, but he says something about not seeing him, so he would go look for him.
The voice over then says something about the playground being in plain sight of his father and dozens of other adults, but the beginning of the clip seems to make it very clear that the parents did not see Michael make it to the playground. There is no mention at this time of anyone confirming that he made it there, and I didn't catch any mention of it anytime during the clip.
There is no mention of an older boy who was supposed to watch out for him (the mom even specifically says she did not know the other children at the playground).
The parking lot looks pretty big. From the remarks made by the reporter and the mom, it was likely at least mostly full. This would be a much easier place to grab him, straight into a vehicle, and there is mention of a suspicious or unknown black vehicle that he would have had to walk past in order to reach the park. I did not catch why the vehicle attracted notice.
I wanted to toss a few of those details out, b/c reading the thread made me think he was likely snatched from the playground, but the clip makes it sound much more likely that it occurred in the parking lot, and he never made it to the playground at all.
The book does not seem to be available on Amazon.
)
