Who struck the match under the "national dialogue"?

I was reading a year in review article in my newspaper, the article listed all the famous and infamous people who died this year. One of the dead was Kenneth Parnell.

You might remember Parnell as the man who kidnapped Steven Stayner in 1972. He kept Staynor as his "son" for 7 years and was only found out when he kidnapped another little boy, Timmy White. Stayner took White, hitchiked to a town in California and turned him over to the police.

It reminded me so much of the recent case where Michael Devlin kidnapped Shawn Hornbeck in 2002. After 5 years Devlin kidnapped another boy, Ben Oweby, who was taken to the police and turned in by Hornbeck.

Here's what really struck me:

Parnell was sentenced to 7 years in prison, he served 5, was on parole for 2, then disappeared. (He was never even charged with any sexual offenses because people didn't talk about "it".)

Devlin was sentenced to 3 life terms.

Obviously in the 30 years seperating the cases a lot has changed. How did that change come about? I know not one person is ever responsible to such change but someone usually strikes the match that gets things moving. In these types of cases was it John Walsh, the father of Adam Walsh?

Mr. B and I were talking about match strikers -- MLK and civil rights, Betty Ford and alcoholism and breast cancer.

Who else struck matches that opened up the national dialogue on "we don't talk about "it"" topics?

Thanks!