Despite publicity, child abductions have waned in recent years.

Byline: Karen Brandon

SAN DIEGO _ In February, 7-year-old Danielle van Dam was kidnapped as she slept in the canopy bed on the second floor of her suburban San Diego home. A few weeks later she was found dead in the desert.

In June, a gunman abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart from the upstairs bedroom she shared with her sister in Salt Lake City. She remains missing.

This week, a man claiming to need help finding his dog grabbed 5-year-old Samantha Runnion while she played a board game with a friend on the front lawn of her home in Orange County south of Los Angeles. On Wednesday, her body was found in a forested area less than an hour's drive away.

These highly publicized cases may have given impression that the nation is witnessing a macabre epidemic of inexplicable abductions of children from the safety of their homes. But the number of such abductions is not on the rise and may have even waned in recent years, law enforcement officials and activists working on missing children's cases say.

What has grown is the attention such crimes receive. Bereft parents of missing children now turn to activist organizations that coach them, down to the details about what to wear, in seeking media attention that may lead to the recovery of…