The story of the Wesson Family is a horrendous tragedy. In 2004, Marcus Wesson was sentenced to death for killing nine of his children and grandchildren, some of whom he had fathered with his own daughters and nieces.

In addition to raping his daughters, Marcus Wesson physically abused his sons, and his wife was so mentally abused and so under his spell that she did nothing to stop it. After an 80 minute standoff with police, they entered the Wesson home to find nine people, between the ages of 1 to 25, each shot through the eye. Wesson apparently brainwashed one of his own relatives in to doing the killing.

Dr. Phil recently spoke to some of the family members on a show titled: The Wesson Family Massacre. It was the first time the family spoke publicly about the abuse and brainwashing they faced at the hands of their father.

"I was so afraid of him I would not dare tell him no," said Gypsy, one of Wesson's daughters.Another Wesson daughter said he told the girls that the abuse was called "loving" and that he was doing his job and getting them prepared for marriage. Another daughter said she thought her father had "Christ in him," something that couldn't be further from the truth.

Wesson's wife said the day he sat the girls down and told them he wanted to impregnate them as surrogates for their mother was "the worst day of her life."

Despite how terrible this story is, Dr. Phil used it as an example of how to overcome horrible events in your life. Wesson's wife, despite admitting that her husband still had a mental sway over her, had begun the process of divorce and had returned to school to further her education. That, Dr. Phil said, was one of the most powerful messages that a Mother could send to her abused daughters about overcoming this tragedy.

But in the case of the Wesson clan, there is something deeper at play here and Dr. Phil got to the heart of it in a commentary on his website:

As parents, we need to resolve, right now, this minute, to actively know who we are exposing ourselves and our children to. The truth is, there are predators in our midst, and I don't want to alarm you, I don't want to scare you, but we must know who is in our lives. We must resolve to know our neighbors, our friends, our teachers, our coaches, in-laws, extended families, anybody who is around us," Dr. Phil says. "The predators are usually those who are closest to us."

Under many state laws, convicted child sex offenders are required to register their address. It's easy now to go on a website and look to see where the convicted child predators in your area live. I did it once and saw many in my neighborhood.

But Dr. Phil is right, sometimes, as in the case of the Wessons, the ones doing the abusing are the ones closest to us. The trusted family member probably has more access to your child than the convicted child molester up the block. We must be aware of those around our children and teach them how to protect themselves from unwanted advances, no matter who they come from. That starts with parents having frank conversations with their children at any early age.

The second part of what Dr. Phil is getting at, I think, is that there needs to be a community effort to protect our children. The Wesson family went to extraordinary lengths to isolate themselves. According to some accounts, neighbors didn't know that there were children in the house.

The community should be alert and aware of people like this and not be afraid to report their concerns. Authorities must develop the skills to discern whether abuse is happening and use creative tools to intervene where necessary.

It takes a village to prevent our children from being victimized.