pukasonqo2 and mpnola -- Exactly right -- in little Cherish's mind, he wasn't a stranger, he was a friend of Mommy's. So, off she went with the nice man who was going to buy her new clothes and take them to the happy place which was McDonald's.
My comments about stranger-danger were not about the Walmart/Rayne/Cherish/DS situation, I was speaking as a parent about the fine line of making kids aware of stranger-danger and scaring kids about people in general -- it's a difficult teaching lesson.
DS really did a number on a weak person -- Rayne was skeptical of DS as she should have been, but his well-polished b.s. and Rayne's need for help with paying for clothes & other necessities pushed her beyond her mother's intuition. She was in a tuff place financially, she was vulnerable and she gave up her no. 1 priority to a monster. I wonder how long it took her to realize she had made the biggest mistake of her life.