Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abergen.

This day, May 30th, 1979, a six-year-old New Yorker by the name of Aeton Pates disappeared.

He lived in Manhattan and Soho, and that day his parents were letting him walk the two blocks to his bus

stop to take the bus to school all by himself for the very first time. But as

we know, as America would soon know, he never made it.

Pates's family started a frantic search for him once they realized at the end of the day that

he was missing, he never showed up at school, it quickly spread around New York City, and then

the country. His face would be on

flyers on milk cartons all over TV. He was never found but his case became one of

the most notable in an era in which child abduction became a major concern.

We've gotten a number of requests

to do an episode about Aeton Pates,

and I'll just read from an email we got from Adam

who writes, and I'm quoting here, this is truly one of those before and after moments.

Before there was a sense of safety after the kids were all on the side of milk cartons.

So let's talk about the Aeton-Pates case and the rise of the

Stranger Danger era. Here as always Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of

Wesley. Hello there. Hello Jody. Hi there. Do either of you remember seeing

not the Aeton-Pates case but do you remember seeing kids on the side of milk cartons?

Is that something that was part of your I have to say I we we

bought our milk and plastic jugs so they didn't they didn't put the kids on the

...