If you were to ask me, on a generic day, if anything ever happens in Corvallis, my answer would be “no.” If you were to ask any college kid on campus the same question, at least 90% of them would answer similarly.

Yesterday, something happened. A nineteen-year-old gal, Brooke Wilberger, was abducted from her sister’s apartment complex near campus; she’s a student at BYU who was visiting during her summer break. When her sister left, she was helping clean lamp posts; when the sister returned, she was gone—but her wallet and keys were still there, and her bucket of water had been knocked over.

According to Without a Trace (and, dubious a source as a TV show might be, I have no reason to doubt this tidbit) there’s a window of about 72 hours after a person is abducted where you still have a good chance of finding them alive.

As of right now, about half of that time has passed.

This gives me flashbacks to reading the Barometer on Halloween my freshman year; the main article was on various “scary” things about OSU. Most of it was outright junk (e.g. the fourth floor of Waldo Hall being haunted), but there was one (true!) story that stuck with me all this time. Back in the day (before I was born, and I’m officially old now), a serial killer struck in Corvallis. Quotes from people who were around at the time painted a very clear picture of a campus scared out of its wits; males even formed groups to escort females around campus.

I now know 1/100 of how they felt back then. And I’m pissed as hell that I had to experience this feeling—shit like this doesn’t happen in my town. We damn well better find Brooke, and we damn well better catch her abductor.