In east Tennessee, at the end of a winding dirt road, a mother glances into the woods she roamed as a child. It’s a deep and dramatic vista: a patchwork of pines and oaks disappearing into an endless Blue Ridge mountain range.
“We used to ride four wheelers all through the woods,” said the woman, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity due to fears for her safety. “We had secret hiding places, we’d just be gone for hours … our parents wouldn’t even know where we were.”
But things are different now.
“I’m afraid to let my own kids do the same things I did,” said the mother of three, who sternly warns her kids: “Whatever you do, don’t go to that side. Because I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
“(They’re) making us all scared to leave our houses.”
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