With all the moral panic about child predation, its worth noting that there are real monsters out there. This is the worst case scenario child abduction.

It was a Friday afternoon like any other. School was out, the weekend was ahead, and 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera was playing outside with friends at the River Ridge apartment complex in Canton where she lived with her mother. She told her friends she was thirsty and she headed inside for a drink.

Shortly after noon Monday investigators decided to empty a metal trash bin packed so tight it could not be searched. When they did, they found the child's body. She had been beaten and sexually abused, GBI Director Vernon Keenan said.

Keenan described the girl's death as a "very, very horrendous crime."

She was playing in the playground in the apartment complex where she lived. There was a teenager supervising the kids on the playground. She got nabbed walking back to her apartment in broad daylight. She was dumped in the complex's trash compactor.

This sort of thing takes ones faith in humanity down a notch.

"I'm scared to death to walk into my apartment right now." Johnston's 11-year-old son was playing with Jorelys on Friday and said she helped search for the girl. Now Johnston fears for her family's safety. "I'm packing my stuff tonight," she said. "I'm moving."

Unsolved killing of 7-year-old girl grips Canton  | ajc.com