A Beautiful Child (ISBN 978-0425204405) was published in America in 2004 and in paperback in 2005. It tells the story of a young woman known by many names, including Sharon Marshall, who was kidnapped as a toddler and raised by a convicted felon, Franklin Delano Floyd. Written by author Matt Birkbeck, A Beautiful Child spurred numerous web sites dedicated to finding Sharon's true identity. Through suggestions from those sites, Birkbeck, in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, have conducted DNA testing on relatives of several girls who went missing in the early 1970s. To date, no matches have been found and Sharon's identity remains a mystery.
Famous quotes containing the words beautiful and/or child:
“A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift—”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Raising children is a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants sort of deal, as any parent knows, particularly after an adult child says that his most searing memory consists of an offhand comment in the car on the way to second grade that the parent cannot even dimly recall.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)