Northeast
7 stories of children who were kidnapped, survived their abductions and were reunited with their families
Hundreds of thousands of young children have fallen victim to a kidnapping.
In the United States alone, a child goes missing or is abducted every 40 seconds, according to the Child Crime Prevention & Safety Center.
About 840,000 people go missing every year, of which 85% to 90% are estimated to be children, according to the FBI.
These United States kidnapping cases are stories of individuals who were captured as young children, but eventually found their way back to their families days, weeks, months and years after they were taken.
Many of those who were kidnapped as children now, in their adult lives, share their stories with others and are involved in advocacy work around missing children. (Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
4 SHOCKING TRUE CRIME MYSTERIES THROUGHOUT HISTORY, FROM THE ‘ZODIAC KILLER’ TO THE ‘BLACK DAHLIA’
- Melissa Highsmith
- Elizabeth Smart
- Jaycee 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 over 50 years.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the family had moved to the Fort Worth area and were in need of a babysitter. Highsmith’s mother placed an ad in the local paper seeking 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 watching her, and she was never seen by the family again, until November 2022.
In November 2022, after many efforts by the family to find Highsmith, they submitted DNA to 23andMe, where matches came back of 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 one – and her daughter led us to her mom,” Jeff Highsmith, Melissa’s younger brother, told Fox News Digital in November 2022.
Melissa reconnected with her family after 51 years on Nov. 22, 2022.
FOUND: MELISSA HIGHSMITH’S FAMILY ‘OVERJOYED’ AFTER BEING REUNITED WITH SISTER ABDUCTED IN 1971
2. Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her family’s Salt Lake City home 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 questioned by an officer while out, Smart eventually revealed her identity and was reunited with her family in March 2003.
KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR ELIZABETH SMART ON EMPOWERING KIDS FROM PREDATORS: ‘DON’T BE AFRAID TO PRACTICE SCREAMING’
In 2009, Smart testified that she was drugged, starved, tied to a tree and raped as often as four times a day while she was in captivity.
Smart’s captor was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on kidnapping charges. His wife, Wanda Breeze, also went to prison and was released after 15 years.
Elizabeth Smart is now an inspirational speaker and an author. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Lifetime)
Today, Smart is married to Matthew Gilmour and she is a mother of three. She is an inspirational speaker and is a published author with two books, “My Story” and “Where There’s Hope.”
“Your safety should always be a priority,” Smart said in an interview with Fox News Digital in December 2022. “And trust your gut. No 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 chances when it comes to your safety.”
“Make sure you have a plan before you go meet up with someone that you’ve never met,” she continued. “Or maybe you have 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’re doing. Let people be involved in your life.”
She also launched the mobile app “Guardian” with the Portland-based tech company Q5id that helps quickly locate missing children and adults nationwide.
3. Jaycee Dugard
Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years.
When she was 11 years old, she was zapped by a stun gun at a bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991.
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She 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 of Garrido’s children, one when she was 14 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 entered guilty pleas to the kidnapping of 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 White
In August 1987, when Carlina White was 19 days old, she started to run a fever, so her parents Joy White and Carl Tyson, took her to Harlem Hospital in New York, according to ABC News.
A women named Ann Pettway, who was disguised as a nurse, kidnapped the baby and raised her under the alias Nejdra Nance.
As the girl aged, she began to become suspicious of her alleged 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 her own.
She was put in touch with her real mother, Joy White. DNA tests 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 abducted by a serial killer named Richard Evonitz. She was playing at a friend’s house when she was approached by Evonitz, who put a gun to her neck, telling her to come with him, according to Chamberlain’s website.
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She was held captive and assaulted for 18 hours. She escaped when he was asleep, and went to law enforcement to give the 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 abducted by serial killer Richard Evonitz from her friend’s yard in 2002. (Kara Robinson Chamberlain)
Today, Chamberlain is married and has two boys.
She has done a lot of advocacy work over the years, is co-host of the podcast “Survivor’s Guide to True Crime,” and was the focus of the 2023 movie “The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story” and the 2021 documentary, “Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story.”
6. Alicia ‘Kozak’ Kozakiewicz
Alicia ‘Kozak’ Kozackiewicz’s case was one of the first widely covered cases involving online predators.
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“I met somebody 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 to find vulnerabilities in a child. And the next thing I knew, I was in a car, and this man was squeezing my hand so tightly that I thought he had broken it.”
Kozak’s abductor, whose name she won’t speak, 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 and beaten and tortured in that house for four days,” Kozak told Fox News Digital in April 2023.
Alicia, at 13 years old, was rescued by FBI after four days with her captor. (Courtesy of Alicia “Kozak” Kozakiewicz)
On the fourth day of being held hostage, her attacker told her they were going to “go for a ride.”
“I knew in that moment there was nothing I could do,” Kozak told Fox News Digital. “I knew he was going to kill me.”
That same day, she heard banging on the door, which turned out to be the FBI. The FBI was brought to the location after someone saw a video of Kozak, which was livestreamed by her abductor, and recognized her from a missing person poster from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. He called the police.
“I remember dragging that cold, heavy chain out, and trying to put my hands up but also trying to cover myself at the same time. I had no clothing on. I was staring at the end of a gun,” Kozak told Fox News Digital.
She was returned to her parents and spent the following years as a motivational speaker and has been an advocate for internet safety.
7. Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck
Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck were both kidnapped by the same man, Michael Devlin, who is now serving 72 life terms, according to the Crime Museum.
Hornbeck was 11 when he was kidnapped in Missouri while he was riding his bike to a friend’s house. He was held captive for four years. While he was missing, his parents set up a foundation to help look for missing children, called the Shawn Hornback Foundation, according to the source.
Devlin kidnaped a second child, Ben Ownby, on Jan. 8, 2007, and a neighbor gave the police a description of the suspicious white truck, which took them to the location of both boys, according to the Crime Museum.
Both of the children were reunited with their families. The finding of the two boys is referred to as the “Missouri Miracle.”
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Afloat is an ideal option if you’ve ever had dreams of owning your own boat but have been told that boat ownership requires endless reserves of cash. Or if you’ve ever wanted to experience a houseboat, although I’d describe my houseboat as more of a floating hotel room.
I’ve made no secret of my dislike of the word “staycation,” but I’ll admit that booking at Afloat is as close as you can get to a staycation in Boston. Depending on your sea legs and your tolerance of motion, of course.
This is also one of the best lodging deals in Boston. My petite houseboat with a queen bed (although it looked more like a double) was $260 a night; two-bedroom yachts were $350. Moored at Constitution Marina in Charlestown, with views of the Zakim Bridge, the only way to get better water views would be to jump into the harbor.
There were some downsides to my houseboat, named Casita, which I believe translates into “little house with a touch of saltwater corrosion that bobs gently in a marina.” The interior was small, as in, I wouldn’t recommend this houseboat for anyone over 230 pounds or over 6 feet 2 inches, give or take. If you’re a hotel snob, it might not be a fit for your high-falutin’ tastes. The room is spartan, but it had everything I needed. There was a full bathroom, a coffee maker, a refrigerator, a hair dryer, an iron, Wi-Fi, air conditioning, heat, and a television.
Wait, but there’s more! There are plenty of moored boats and houseboats that you can rent on Airbnb or VRBO, but how many of them include a pool where you can splash your cares away? Or communal barbecues where you can BYOB (that’s bring your own beef) and grill your dinner? These are marina extras included in my stay that I was not expecting. I spent time by the pool with a soccer-crazed family from Norway. I tried to change the topic from soccer to my favorite Norwegian pop stars. The family hastily grabbed their towels and left the pool area.
There are people to escort you to your boat and carry your luggage. They also explained the room’s features. I assume if I were staying on a yacht, the orientation would be more detailed, including “do not untie this boat and start sailing to Bermuda.” There was a paper bag on the bed of my room filled with houseboat essentials: lip balm, a tin of mints, a blueberry Nutri-Grain bar, a bag of mini rice cakes, and a postcard of the marina.
Afloat has another advantage that I hadn’t anticipated. It gave me entrance to the rarified world of marina life. At one point or another, we’ve all walked by a marina and looked down as sun-kissed boat owners sipped beer on the decks of their yachts or hosed down their sailboats after a day at sea. We walk by, green in the gills with envy, trying to justify our feelings by saying that buying a boat is about as solid an investment as encasing cash in concrete and throwing it to the bottom of the ocean. But really, we want to be a part of it.
Finally, I had an entree into the marina universe. I walked around and checked out the other boats, my bare feet on the warm wooden planks. I casually waved or said, “How’s it going?” in a tone that indicated that I was also a part of marina culture, my imaginary yacht sitting nearby. I’m sure my jaunty nautical ensembles helped solidify my place there.
I generally avoid bed-and-breakfasts in the same way I avoid smiling folks on the sidewalk holding a clipboard who say, “Excuse me, sir, do you have a minute…” But Afloat is a different kind of B&B. I didn’t have to talk to other guests or sit awkwardly at a table with strangers in the morning. There’s also no hard and fast rule that breakfast ends at 9 a.m., which, coincidentally, is the time I normally wake up.
Instead, when you check in, you’re given $10 vouchers for Emmi Bakery & Cafe, which is a fish’s throw from the marina. Here, I could get whatever I liked, whenever I liked (the cafe closes at 4 p.m.), without feeling obligated to make small talk with strangers. The advantage of staying in a houseboat over a yacht is that it has a small, private deck adjacent to it, surrounded by herbs and flowers. I invited friends over, some of whom did not appreciate the charms of Casita as much as I did.
My husband was the first visitor. He entered with a look of horror and declared, “This place is terrible. I thought you only stayed at nice hotels.” Within five minutes, he grew seasick and quickly exited, never to return.
“I’m going to call you in the morning to make sure you haven’t floated out to sea,” he said as I rolled my eyes.
Other friends were kinder, but not much. I broke out a bottle of wine on the deck at sunset while my friends popped open the Dramamine. I barely noticed the sway, but the more delicate among you might blanch quickly.
Being at Constitution Marina gave me an excuse to explore Charlestown, a part of the city that I rarely see. Not because I don’t like it, but because parking can be a bear. I had dinner outside at Monument Restaurant and Tavern, looked around at Boston National Historic Park, and took the MBTA ferry from Charlestown to Long Wharf. For $3.75, I had a quick scenic spin in the harbor.
I’ll give the houseboat at Bed and Breakfast Afloat Boston a rating of four anchors out of five. I think much of my good vibes had to do with the perfect weather and the views, but I also loved the feeling of adventure and the way the water rocked me to sleep. That’s a feature you can’t find at any other B&B in the city.
28 Constitution Road, www.bedandbreakfastafloat.com. 617-241-9640.
Christopher Muther can be reached at christopher.muther@globe.com. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.
Pittsburg, PA
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Connecticut is taking a step to make sure workers are paid fairly.
On June 30, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed Public Act 26-17, which enables the State Comptroller to issue a stop work order and withhold state funds to contractors that are not properly paying their employees.
The bill was signed on the construction site for Greeneville Elementary School, which is one of the four new elementary schools being built in Norwich. The State of Connecticut is reimbursing the city for 80% of the project, and the law applies to “any place where the state is making a payment,” Lamont said.
Wage theft can take many forms
It matters because wage theft can take many forms, from money taken from base pay, to money not given in benefits, Kimberly Glassman, director of compliance and government affairs for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 478, said.
Local 478 also has a presence in the Norwich school building project, with 10 to 20 union members working at each site daily, Glassman said.
What do state leaders think of the Greeneville site’s progress?
Lamont is impressed with how quickly the work is going.
“They told me that the walls went up in the last two weeks, so a lot of progress is happening,” he said.
During the bill signing, Norwich Mayor Swarnjit Singh touted the importance of using union labor and the value of project labor agreements.
“We are on time and on budget,” he said.
After the bill signing, Singh said its possible the Greeneville School building could be complete as soon as the first quarter of 2027, he said.
“They’re not wasting any time,” Singh said.
State Rep. Derrel Wilson attended the original Greeneville School as a kid, and still lives in Greeneville. He was credited as being one of the driving forces for getting the workers bill passed.
“It’s exciting seeing this revitalization for our neighborhood, seeing active construction and watching individuals rebuild our community,” Wilson said.
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