A childhood belief about criminals

I suppose that from the ages of about 6-8 I must have thought murders were a pretty common occurence, and that murderers must be generally on the prowl for sneaking in people's windows and stabbing up little kids. I suppose this is what I believed, as I distinctly remember piling my (not inconsiderable amount of) cuddley toys on top of me at night. I remember feeling very bad that I was putting my own life and feeling before those of my cuddlies, but doing it none the less. My idea being that is a murderer should come through my window his knife might not reach me through all my cuddley toys. It neither occurred to me that it was reasonably unlikely that a murderer would come in through my window, nor thathe might have some other weapon than a knife - say, a gun - against which my cuddley toys would provide no defense at all.