This is an act that causes inconsolable grief and never ending heartache to the families concerned. In many ways it is a fate worse than death because death, at least, is tangible and recognisable. There is a stark reality that everyone accepts. There is a body. There is a funeral.
Parents grieve and mourn but in time the anguish eases and they adjust to coping with their loss.
Abduction is worse than death because it creates a lifetime of unassuaged anguish, guilt, longing, blame, and a host of feelings that never really ease. Every birthday that passes is an anniversary of renewed pain. All questions go unanswered. The sadness of parents who lose their children through abduction stays with them until the end of their lives, with only death bringing a release from the melancholy that has enveloped them. They had lost their child to strangers.