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Foundation pushes 12-year-old murder victim’s memory forward in Grand Rapids

Posted at 8:58 PM, Aug 13, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-14 09:30:25-04

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It’s a story that shocked and enraged the nation in the fall of 1993.

12-year-old Polly Klaas invited two friends for a sleepover at her home in Petaluma, California. A strange man armed with a knife entered her bedroom, tied all three girls up and put pillow cases over their heads.

The suspect took Polly from the home.

The abduction led to a massive search where more than two billion images of Polly were distributed nationwide. It was one of the first cases of its kind to incorporate the use of the internet in the search.

Her body was found nine weeks later in early December. A man named Richard Allen Davis confessed to the kidnapping and murder.

The search for Polly was nothing like ever before. She was known as the first internet child. She was the first one to have a digitized missing poster online. The on the ground search for her covered 1,000 square miles, and 3,000 square miles by air.

Polly Klaas’ parents helped to start the Klaas Foundation 22 years ago, which developed specialized skills in helping find missing children working with family, law enforcement, the press, and volunteers.

Mark Klaas, Polly’s father, has travelled across the United States trying to make kids safer, hoping he can save other kids and parents from what his family went through. That mission brought him to Grand Rapids last week.

Mark Klaas and Engineered Protection Systems hosted a Klaas Kids print-a-thon at John Ball Zoo to promote and educate families about child safety and to fingerprint and photograph children at no cost.

“We we wanted to give meaning to Polly’s death and create a legacy that would be protective of children for generations to come. We do that by advocating legislation. We have a search and rescue operation that is very vibrant around the country and we have this finger print program,” said Klaas.

The booth had a line all day at the event overflowing with parents and kids.

“We do it as means of bringing families together and giving them really good information so that they can have a safety talk with their kids on a regular basis so it’s not fear based, that’s really the hurdle parents have to overcome,” said Klaas.

Klaas admits he will never fully be able to recover from the loss of his daughter.

“A tragedy like that never leaves your mind for more than a few moments at a time, so it’s always in the fore front of my thoughts, but doing this work and knowing that all of the children that have had tragedies over the course of the last 20 years, and that Polly is one of those remembered, for reasons that ultimately benefit society is therapeutic for me. It really is,” said Klaas.

While Klaas can never change that Polly is gone forever, he can make sure her memory lives on, and try to change some other family’s fate.

“It has allowed me and allowed my wife to put our lives back together and move forward,” said Klaas.

You can get more information on the Klaas Foundation and their finger printing programhere.