The first of many posts I am catching up on that were intended to have been posted a week or two ago...
From the indispensable Laer: Girl Who Had No Name Finds Road to Healing:The world was looking to save the child seen in porn. But she was safe and rebuilding her life.
By Maggie Farley, LATimes Staff WriterPosted by Kyer at June 29, 2005 11:26 AMNEW YORK — Mea, 12, didn't know everyone was looking for her.
She wasn't aware that concerned police officers thought she was caught in a nightmare of abuse, reflected in hundreds of sexually explicit photos of her on the Internet.
And she didn't know that one particular team of Toronto police officers had been so haunted over the years by her image and fate that in February they asked the public to help find her.
But Mea already had been found.
She was safe and with her new adoptive mother. They didn't see the news show where the police broadcast sanitized versions of the Internet photos in February and asked for help identifying the background locations. One of the backgrounds turned out to be a hotel at Disney World, a detail that led many to refer to her as "the Disney World girl."