After 33 years, someone has confessed to killing 6-year-old Etan Patz. And people immediately start speaking of "closure."

Patty Wetterling hates the word.

Since 1989, she and her husband have writhed in the same hell as Stan and Julie Patz. Whatever path they might have been on, it was irrevocably altered that October evening when a masked man walked away with their 11-year-old boy, Jacob.

"Once you're a victim of a crime like this, your life takes a very different direction," the St. Joseph, Minn., woman says. "It doesn't really close anything, because everything just became different from that point on. But it does provide answers."

Thanks to the wonders of modern computer graphics, these parents can watch their children "age" — digitally, at least. But no one can write a program capable of generating the milestones — high school graduation, college, marriage, parenthood — that come along with growing up.