If a stranger in a parking lot offers to help a woman with her groceries, should she say thank you? or start running? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, new research on predicting violence. Also, one woman's story of survival. When her abusive husband kidnapped her children, she became a tracker, and eventually got them back.

SEGMENT 1

Gavin de Becker is an expert on predicting violent behavior and the author of "The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence." He tells Anne Strainchamps some of the strategies criminal predators use and gives tips on how women (or men for that matter) can protect themselves and their chiildren.

SEGMENT 2:

Hannah Nyala was an abused wife and mother. She became a tracker and is now a respected member of a National Park Service Search and Rescue Team. She tells Steve Paulson about living with and leaving her abusive husband, how the legal system made things harder for her, and why tracking has permitted her to heal.

SEGMENT 3:

Paula Sharp is an attorney for Legal Aid in New York State. She is also the author of a novel - "Crows over a Wheatfield." She tells Judith Strasser that Family Court judges often have no criminal court experience and fail to recognize potential abusers and abusive situations. In her novel, which she stresses is a work of fiction, she explores the psychology of an abusive husband and imagines a moral, but illegal, alternative to the present system.

Distribution dates:

• week of 07/27/97 - hour 2
• week of 07/05/98 - hour 1