there are hundreds of thousands of little children Became a victim of kidnapping.
According to the Centers for Child Crime Prevention and Safety, in the United States alone, a child goes missing or is abducted every 40 seconds.
According to the FBI, approximately 840,000 people go missing each year, of which 85% to 90% are estimated to be children.
in United States kidnapping cases These are stories of individuals who were captured as young children, but were eventually returned to their families days, weeks, months and years after being taken.
Many of those who were abducted as children now share their stories with others in their adult lives and are involved in advocacy work for missing children. (Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
- melissa highsmith
- elizabeth smart
- jessie dugard
- carlina white
- Kara Robinson Chamberlain
- Alicia Kozakiewicz
- Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck
1. Melissa Highsmith
Melissa Highsmith was reunited with her family in November 2022 after being separated for more than 50 years.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the family had moved fort worth area And they needed a babysitter. Highsmith’s mother placed an advertisement in the local newspaper looking for one.
A woman responded to the ad and on August 23, 1971, the babysitter picked up Highsmith from her mother’s apartment, where a roommate was watching her, and she was never seen by the family again until November 2022.
In November 2022, after several attempts by the family to find Highsmith, they submitted DNA to 23andMe, where matches were returned to three children of the couple named John and Melanie Brown.
Melanie, who turned out to be Melissa, was still living in Fort Worth, Texas.
“One of our sisters called her daughter – the youngest one – and her daughter took us to her mother,” Jeff Highsmith, Melissa’s younger brother, told Fox News Digital in November 2022.
Melissa reunited with her family after 51 years on November 22, 2022.
Found: Melissa Highsmith’s family ‘overjoyed’ after being reunited with sister kidnapped in 1971
2. Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her family salt lake city home On June 5, 2002, when she was 14, by Brian Mitchell.
Her sister, Mary Katherine Smart, who lived in a room with her, was the only witness to the kidnapping, and according to History.com, when she felt it was safe to do so, she told her parents a few hours after the crime was committed. -Woke up father. ,
Interrogated by an officer while out, Smart eventually revealed her identity and was reunited with her family in March 2003.
In 2009, Smart testified that she was drugged, starved, tied to a tree, and raped four times a day while she was imprisoned.
Smart’s captor was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of kidnapping. His wife Wanda Breeze also went to prison and was released after 15 years.
Elizabeth Smart is now an inspirational speaker and author. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Lifetime)
Today Smart is married to Matthew Gilmour and is the mother of three children. She is an inspirational speaker and published author of two books, “My Story” and “Where There’s Hope.”
“Your safety should always be the priority,” Smart said in an interview with Fox News Digital in December 2022. , and you don’t feel safe, so don’t worry about offending your date. Don’t take risks when it comes to your safety.
He adds, “Make sure you have a plan before you go meet someone you’ve never met.” “Or maybe you met someone and something happened. Think about what you would do in different scenarios. Talk about it with your family. Talk about it with your friends. Your Build a support network. Talk to people about what you’re going through. ”
He also launched this Mobile App “Guardian” With Q5id, a Portland-based technology company that helps quickly locate missing children and adults across the country.
3. Jesse Dugard
Jesse Dugard was held captive for 18 years.
When she was 11 years old, she was stabbed with a stun gun at a bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991.
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She was taken in by Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy.
According to CBS News, she was held captive for 18 years, where she was repeatedly raped. According to the outlet, while incarcerated, she gave birth to two of Garrido’s children, one when she was 14 and the other when she was 17.
Jesse Dugard wrote a memoir titled “A Stolen Life” in 2011. (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
According to the Crime Museum, Phillip and Nancy entered guilty pleas to the kidnapping of Dugard on April 28, 2011. Phillip, who was a registered sex offender before the kidnapping, received a 431-years-to-life sentence, while Nancy received 36 years behind bars.
Dugard published a memoir, “A Stolen Life”, telling her story in 2011.
4. Carlina White
In August 1987, when Carlina White was 19 days old, she started having a fever, so her parents Joey White and Carl Tyson took her in. Harlem Hospital in New York, According to ABC News.
A woman named Ann Pettway, disguised as a nurse, kidnapped the baby and raised her under the name of Nejdra Nance.
As the girl grew older, she began to doubt her alleged mother. This led him to discover the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2010, where he saw a photo of a child similar to him.
She was put in contact with her real mother, Joy White. DNA testing confirmed the match and the two reunited after 23 years in January 2011.
Pettway was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
5. Kara Robinson Chamberlain
In 2002, Kara Robinson Chamberlain was kidnapped by a serial killer named Richard Ivonitz. According to Chamberlain’s website, she was playing at a friend’s house when Ivonitz approached her, who put a gun to her neck and told her to come with him.
South Carolina kidnapping survivor Kara Robinson gives tips to avoid kidnapping
He was held hostage for 18 hours and beaten. According to the site, she escaped while he was sleeping and went to law enforcement to provide a description of the man who had taken her.
According to People, Ivonitz shot himself after a high-speed chase in Sarasota, Florida.
Kara Robinson Chamberlain was abducted from her friend’s house by serial killer Richard Ivowitz in 2002. (Kara Robinson Chamberlain)
Today, Chamberlain is married and has two sons.
She has done a lot of advocacy work over the years, co-hosts the podcast “Survivor’s Guide to True Crime,” and was the focus of the 2023 film “The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story” and the 2021 documentary, “Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story.”
6. Alicia ‘Kozak’ Kozakiewicz
The case of Alicia ‘Kozak’ Kozakiewicz was one of the first widely covered cases involving online predators.
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Kozak recalled during a 2021 interview with Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren during an episode of “No Interruption,” “I met someone online who I thought was my friend, who I Can understand.” “That’s what predators do. They look for weaknesses in a kid. And the next thing I knew, I was in a car, and this guy was squeezing my hand so hard I thought he broke it.”
According to Fox News Digital, Kozak’s kidnapper, whom she would not name, took her from Pittsburgh to his home in Virginia. He was kept hostage for four days.
“He chained me to the floor with a dog collar next to the bed. I was raped and beaten and tortured for four days in that house,” Kozak told Fox News Digital in April 2023.
Alicia, 13, was rescued by the FBI along with her kidnapper four days later. (Courtesy of Alicia “Kozak” Kozakiewicz)
On the fourth day of his captivity, his attacker told him they were “going for a walk.”
“I knew there was nothing I could do at that moment,” Kozak told Fox News Digital. “I knew he would kill me.”
That same day, he heard banging on the door, which turned out to be the FBI. The FBI was brought to the scene after someone watched a video of Kozak, which her kidnapper had livestreamed, and recognized her from a missing persons poster from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He called the police.
Kozak told Fox News, “I remember pulling that cold, heavy chain out and trying to put my hands up but also trying to cover myself. I didn’t have anyone. There were no clothes. I was looking at the end of the gun.” digital.
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She returned to her parents and spent the next year as a motivational speaker and advocate for Internet safety.
7. Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck
According to the Crime Museum, Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck were both kidnapped by the same man, Michael Devlin, who is now serving 72 life sentences.
Hornbeck was 11 years old when he was abducted in Missouri while riding his bike to a friend’s house. He was kept hostage for four years. According to the source, when he was missing, his parents set up a foundation called the Shawn Hornback Foundation to help search for missing children.
According to the Crime Museum, Devlin abducted another child, Ben Ownby, on January 8, 2007, and a neighbor gave police a description of the suspicious white truck, which led them to the location of both boys.
Both the children were reunited with their families. The discovery of the two boys has been called the “Missouri Miracle”.
