Children who were kidnapped, survived and reunited with their families: Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard and more
Hundreds of thousands of young children have been victims of kidnapping.
In the United States alone, a child disappears or is kidnapped every 40 seconds, according to the Center for Child Safety and Crime Prevention.
About 840,000 people disappear every year, of which an estimated 85% to 90% are children, according to the FBI.
These US kidnapping cases are stories of people who were captured as young children, but who eventually found their way back to their families days, weeks, months, and years after being kidnapped.
Many of those who were kidnapped as children now, in their adult lives, share their stories with others and participate in advocacy work for missing children. (Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
4 SHOCKING TRUE CRIME MYSTERIES THROUGHOUT HISTORY, FROM THE ‘ZODIAC KILLER’ TO THE ‘BLACK DALIA’
- Melissa Highsmith
- smart elizabeth
- Jaycee Dugard
- white carlina
- 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 to the Fort Worth area and needed a babysitter. Highsmith’s mother placed an ad 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 had been babysitting her, and the family never saw her again, until November 2022.
In November 2022, after many efforts by the family to find Highsmith, they submitted DNA to 23andMe, where matches emerged for three children of a 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, and her daughter took us to her mother,” Jeff Highsmith, Melissa’s younger brother, told Fox News Digital in November 2022.
Melissa reconnected with her family after 51 years on November 22, 2022.
FOUND: MELISSA HIGHSMITH’S FAMILY ‘DECKED’ AFTER REUNITING WITH HER KIDNAPPED SISTER IN 1971
2. Elizabeth smart
Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her family home in Salt Lake City when she was 14 years old on June 5, 2002 by Brian Mitchell.
Her sister, Mary Katherine Smart, who shared a room with her, was the only witness to the kidnapping and woke her parents a couple of hours after the crime was committed when she felt it was safe to do so, according to History.com. .
When an officer questioned her while she was away, Smart finally revealed her identity and was reunited with her family in March 2003.
KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR ELIZABETH SMART ON EMPOWERING CHILDREN FROM PREDATORS: ‘DON’T BE AFRAID TO PRACTICE SCREAMING’
In 2009, Smart testified that she was drugged, starved, tied to a tree, and raped up to four times a day while in captivity.
Smart’s captor was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty 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 life)
Today, Smart is married to Matthew Gilmour and is the mother of three children. She is an inspirational speaker and author of two books, “My Story” and “Where There Is Hope.”
“Your safety should always be a priority,” Smart said in an interview with Fox News Digital in December 2022. “And trust your gut. It doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s a party, there will be another party. If it’s a date , and you don’t feel safe, don’t worry about offending your date. Your safety should be a priority. Don’t take risks when it comes to your safety.
“Make sure you have a plan before meeting up with someone you’ve never met,” he continued. “Or maybe you met someone and something happens. Think about what you would do in different scenarios. Talk about it with your family. Talk about it with your friends. Build your support network. Talk to them about what you are doing. Let “Let people get involved in your life.”
She also released the “Guardian” mobile application with Portland-based technology company Q5id, which helps quickly locate missing children and adults across the country.
3. Jaycee Dugard
Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years.
When she was 11, she was hit by a stun gun at a bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991.
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It was taken by Philip Garrido and his wife Nancy.
She was held hostage for 18 years, where she was repeatedly raped, according to CBS News. During her time in captivity she gave birth to two children to Garrido, one when she was 14 years old and another when she was 17, according to the outlet.
Jaycee Dugard wrote a memoir in 2011 called “A Stolen Life.” (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
Phillip and Nancy pleaded guilty to kidnapping Dugard on April 28, 2011, according to the Crime Museum. Phillip, who was a registered sex offender before the kidnapping, received 431 years to life in prison, while Nancy received a sentence of 36 years behind bars.
Dugard published a memoir, “A Stolen Life,” in 2011, telling her story.
4. Carlina Blanco
In August 1987, when Carlina White was 19 days old, she started running a fever, so her parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, took her to 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 alias Nejdra Nance.
As the girl grew up, she became suspicious of her supposed mother. This led her to search the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website in 2010, where she saw a baby photo similar to hers.
He contacted his real mother, Joy White. DNA testing confirmed a match and the two were reunited after 23 years in January 2011.
Pettway was sentenced to 12 years behind bars.
5. Kara Robinson Chamberlain
In 2002, Kara Robinson Chamberlain was kidnapped by a serial killer named Richard Evonitz. She was playing at a friend’s house when Evonitz approached her, put a gun to her neck and told her to come with him, according to Chamberlain’s website.
KARA ROBINSON, SOUTH CAROLINA KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR, REVEALS TIPS TO ESCAPE ABDUCTION
She was held captive and attacked for 18 hours. She escaped while he was asleep and went to authorities to give details of the man who took her, according to the site.
After a high-speed chase in Sarasota, Florida, Evonitz shot himself, according to People.
Kara Robinson Chamberlain was kidnapped by serial killer Richard Evonitz from her friend’s garden in 2002. (Kara Robinson Chamberlain)
Today, Chamberlain is married with two children.
She has done a lot of promotional 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’ Kozackiewicz was one of the first widely covered cases involving online predators.
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“I met someone online who I thought was my friend, who could understand me,” Kozak recalled during a 2021 interview with Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren during an episode of “No Interruption.” “That’s what predators do. They look for vulnerabilities in a child. And the next thing I knew, I was in a car and this man was squeezing my hand so hard I thought he broke it.”
Kozak’s kidnapper, whose name she does not want to say, according to Fox News Digital, took her from Pittsburgh to his home in Virginia. She was held captive for four days.
“He chained me to the floor with this dog collar next to the bed. I was raped, beaten and tortured in that house for four days,” Kozak told Fox News Digital in April 2023.
Alicia, 13, was rescued by the FBI after four days with her captor. (Courtesy of Alicia “Kozak” Kozakiewicz)
On the fourth day of being held hostage, his attacker told him that they were going “for a walk.”
“I knew at that moment there was nothing I could do,” Kozak told Fox News Digital. “I knew he was going to kill me.”
That same day he heard knocking on the door, which turned out to be the FBI. The FBI was brought to the scene after someone saw a video of Kozak, which was live-streamed by her abductor, and recognized her from a missing person poster from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She called the police.
“I remember pulling out that cold, heavy chain and trying to put my hands up but also trying to cover myself at the same time. I had no clothes on. I was looking at the tip of a gun,” Kozak told Fox News. Digital.
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She returned to her parents and spent the next few years as a motivational speaker and Internet safety advocate.
7. Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck
Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck were kidnapped by the same man, Michael Devlin, who is now serving 72 life sentences, according to the Crime Museum.
Hornbeck was 11 when he was kidnapped in Missouri while riding his bike to a friend’s house. He was held captive for four years. While he was missing, his parents created a foundation to help search for missing children, called the Shawn Hornback Foundation, according to the source.
Devlin kidnapped a second boy, Ben Ownby, on Jan. 8, 2007, and a neighbor gave police a description of the suspicious white truck, which took them to the location of both boys, according to the Crime Museum.
Both children were reunited with their families. The discovery of the two children is known as the “Missouri Miracle.”
