Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped at age fourteen on June 5, 2002, by Brian Mitchell from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. Her captivity lasted approximately nine months before she was discovered in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 miles (29 km) from her home.
Samantha Bree (Jackson) Runnion was a five-year-old girl abducted from outside her home in Stanton, California, and murdered.
Elizabeth Ann Gilmour is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She gained national attention at age 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, held Smart captive for nine months until she was rescued by police officers on a street in Sandy, Utah.
John Edward Walsh, Jr. is an American television presenter, criminologist, victims' rights activist, and the host/creator of America's Most Wanted. He is known for his anti-crime activism, with which he became involved following the murder of his son, Adam, in 1981; in 2008, deceased serial killer Ottis Toole was officially named as Adam's killer. Walsh was part-owner of the now defunct National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C. He also anchored an investigative documentary series, The Hunt with John Walsh, which debuted on CNN in 2014.
The murder of Karmein Chan is an Australian child murder case in which a 13-year-old Chinese-Australian girl was abducted at knifepoint from her Templestowe, Victoria, home during the night of 13 April 1991. Karmein's body was discovered at Edgars Creek in the suburb of Thomastown on 9 April 1992; the prime suspect for her abduction and murder is an unidentified serial child rapist known as "Mr Cruel", who had abducted and sexually assaulted a minimum of three prepubescent and adolescent girls in circumstances markedly similar to Karmein in the years prior to her abduction.
John Jamelske is an American serial rapist-kidnapper who, from 1988 to his apprehension in 2003, kidnapped a series of girls and women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in DeWitt, a suburb of Syracuse, New York, United States.
Carolyn Gusoff is an American television news reporter and author, working as a Long Island reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City. Prior to that, she spent three years as a reporter at Fox 5 in New York City, and before that she worked for 15 years at WNBC in New York City as the Long Island Bureau Chief/Reporter and anchor of Weekend Today in New York. Her book, Buried Memories: Katie Beers' Story, which she wrote in collaboration with kidnapping victim Katie Beers, is a New York Times bestseller.
David Parker Ray, also known as the Toy-Box Killer, was an American kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer. Ray kidnapped, raped and tortured an unknown number of women over many decades at his home in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. Ray was suspected by authorities and accused by accomplices of murdering up to 60 of his victims, however no bodies or definitive evidence has ever been uncovered linking him to any murders. Ray was arrested in 1999 after one of his victims escaped, and was convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001 after taking a plea deal. He received a lengthy sentence, but was never tried or convicted for murder due to lack of evidence. He died of a heart attack about one year into his prison sentence.
Spaceplex was an indoor amusement park and arcade opened in 1991 at 620 Middle Country Road, Nesconset, New York, United States. Gary Tuzzalo was a co-owner and the general manager, and James Manas was another principal in the parent company, Spaceplex Amusement Centers International Ltd. It is the location where Katie Beers' abductor, John Esposito, claimed to have lost Beers, when in reality she was not taken from there.
On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard, an eleven-year-old girl, was abducted from a street while walking to a school bus stop in Meyers, California, United States. Searches began immediately after Dugard's disappearance, but no reliable leads were generated, even though several people witnessed the kidnapping. Dugard remained missing for over 18 years until 2009, when a convicted sex offender, Phillip Garrido, visited the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, accompanied by two adolescent girls, who were discovered to be the biological daughters of Garrido and Dugard, on August 24 and 25 of that year. The unusual behavior of the trio sparked an investigation that led Garrido's parole officer, Edward Santos Jr. to order Garrido to take the two girls to a parole office in Concord, California, on August 26. Garrido was accompanied by a woman who was eventually identified as Dugard.
Michaela Joy Garecht was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue.
Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.
Donald Albin Blom was an American convicted of the murder of Katie Poirier in 1999. A registered sex offender involved in five cases of kidnapping and sexual assault prior to Poirier's murder, he was suspected of being a serial killer by case investigators.
Between 2002 and 2004, Ariel Castro abducted Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus from the roads of Cleveland, Ohio and later held them captive in his home at 2207 Seymour Avenue in the city's Tremont neighborhood. All three girls were imprisoned at Castro's home until 2013, when Berry successfully escaped with her six-year-old daughter, to whom she had given birth while captive, and contacted the police. Police rescued Knight and DeJesus, and arrested Castro hours later.
A fake kidnapping or self-kidnapping is a kidnapping that has been staged by the victim.
Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Jane Gordon were two Australian girls who went missing while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Their disappearance, and presumed abduction and murder, became one of South Australia's most infamous crimes. The presumed murders are thought by South Australia Police and the media to be related to the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is sometimes referred to as the Adelaide Oval abductions.
In the alleged criminal case of Lisa F., a 13 year old Russian-German girl was reported missing for over a day in Berlin in January 2016 and, after returning, she first claimed that she had been kidnapped and raped by three strangers. The case was promptly used by Russian officials and media to accuse Germany of tolerating and covering up child abuse. These accusations provoked demonstrations of Russian Germans in several cities in Germany. The kidnapping story was shortly after proven to be false by police after analysis of mobile phone logs and Lisa admitted she went into hiding voluntarily and wasn't raped.
Sara Anne Wood was a twelve-year-old American girl who disappeared while riding her bicycle home from Norwich Corners Church in Sauquoit, New York. She is believed to have been abducted less than half a mile from her own home by convicted child killer Lewis Stephen Lent Jr.
Lisa McVey Noland is an American police officer, school resource officer, and motivational speaker from Tampa, Florida. At age 17, she was abducted by Bobby Joe Long, a serial killer and rapist who sexually assaulted and murdered ten women in the Tampa Bay area in 1984. McVey was one of Long's last victims and the information she provided to police led to his capture. A few years after her ordeal, McVey began to pursue a career in law enforcement.
