Jacob Wetterling
In 1989, Jacob Wetterling, 11, his brother Trevor, 10, and a friend, Aaron, 11, were riding their bikes while returning home from a convenience store in St. Joseph, Minnesota. A masked man came out of a driveway and ordered the boys to throw their bikes into a ditch, turn off their flashlights, and lie face down on the ground. The gunman asked each of the boys his age. They responded. He told Trevor to run into the woods and not to look back, or he would shoot him. Next, the gunman turned Aaron over, looked at his face, and told him to run into the woods. As Trevor and Aaron ran away, they glanced back to see the gunman grab Jacob's arm. When Aaron and Trevor reached the wooded area, they turned to find that Jacob and the gunman were gone. Jacob has never been found.

On October 22, 1989, friends and strangers rallied to the family's aid and worked 24 hours each day to search the area and distribute flyers across the country. Investigators later learned that, unknown to local law enforcement, halfway houses in St. Joseph housed sex offenders after their release from prison. Jacob's mother, Patty, became an advocate for missing children and was appointed to a Governor's Task Force that recommended stronger sex offender registration requirements in Minnesota. Later, the U.S. Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act in Jacob's honor.

Megan Kanka
In July 1994, 7-year-old Megan Kanka accepted an invitation from a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, to see his new puppy. The neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas, was a twice-convicted pedophile. He raped her, murdered her, and dumped her body in a nearby park. Megan's parents said that they never would have allowed her to travel the neighborhood freely if they had known that a convicted sex offender was living across the street. Megan's Law later became part of the act in an effort to provide community notification.

Pam Lychner
Houston real estate agent Pam Lychner prepared to show a vacant home to a prospective buyer. Awaiting her at the house was a twice-convicted felon who brutally assaulted her. Her husband arrived and saved her life. She then formed "Justice for All," a victims rights advocacy group that lobbies for tougher sentences for violent criminals. U.S. Senators Gramm and Biden credited Lychner with helping craft the language of a bill that established a national database to track sex offenders. Lychner and her two daughters were killed in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996. Later that year, Congress passed the Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996 in her memory.