Outrage and Tears.

The murder of Carlie Brucia, whose abduction was caught on camera, shocks the nation--and leaves many wondering if the crime could have been prevented. The moment, caught on a car-wash security camera and repeated endlessly on TV news, was every parent's darkest fear brought to life. Walking home at dusk in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 1 after a sleepover at a friend's house, Carlie Brucia, 11, was approached by a stranger, who spoke a few words, took her by the arm and quickly led her out of view. Five days later Brucia's body was found in the bushes behind a neighborhood church. "My emotions go from very difficult to control to feeling actual pain to being able to take a break from it for a while," says her heartbroken father, Joe Brucia Jr., 39. "But then it comes back." Just a month earlier Florida circuit court judge Harry Rapkin had been asked by corrections officials to issue a warrant to arrest Smith for violating his probation because Smith had failed to pay $170 in court costs for an earlier drug bust.