Katlyn Collman was found dead in a local stream with her hands tied behind her back shortly after accidentally coming across a meth lab in an apartment near her home. A 20-year-old man has been charged with her murder.

The killing has moved local residents to gather money to build a playground in the child's memory on the site of the meth lab. It also has sparked an outpouring of information about other drug activity in town. "Katie may be gone, but she's going to live forever in this town," said John Neace, Katlyn's father. "We're taking down one meth house -- you probably can't take them all down, but it's sending a message. We're taking our town back."

Problems with meth have slowly grown in Crothersville (pop. 1,541); a house behind a church, being used as a meth lab, exploded in December, another meth lab near a local school was raided last year. But in such a small town, people were reluctant to report on their neighbors, friends, and relatives. Some felt the police also were uninterested in addressing the problem.

Since the murder, however, people are speaking out as they hang blue ribbons around town; blue was Katie's favorite color. "This town is not going to be known, and these people are not going to let it be known, for a murder," said Terry Gray, assistant chief of the Crothersville volunteer fire department. "They're going to be known as a town that took a bad situation and made it something good."

Some, however, wish it hadn't taken the killing of a young girl to prompt a change of heart. "It's changed too late," said resident Misty Banks. "They've known it's been going on this whole time, and they have to wait until a 10-year-old's dead?"

"If we had a brothel move into town, people would close it down instantly," said the Rev. Jon Pearce of the First Baptist Church. "If we had an X-rated movie house come, it'd be gone within a week. But this has been here. It is a monster. We didn't know what kind of monster it was."

Darkly, parents no longer feel safe letting their children go outside and play unattended in Crothersville. But a new anti-drug task force set up in recent weeks has sparked some hope. "Anyone who tells themselves it's not a problem in their area is fooling themselves," said Sergeant Jerry Goodin of the Indiana State Police. "Are we stupid enough to think we got them all? No way. It's something we're going to stay on."

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