Patricia Campbell Hearst is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found and arrested 19 months after being abducted, by which time she was a fugitive wanted for serious crimes committed with members of the group. She was held in custody, and there was speculation before trial that her family's resources would enable her to avoid time in prison.
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 Paul Getty III was the grandson of American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, who was once the richest man in the world. While living in Rome in 1973, he was kidnapped by the 'Ndrangheta and held for a $17 million ransom. His grandfather was reluctant to pay, but, after John Paul Getty III's severed ear was received by a newspaper, the grandfather negotiated a payment of $2.2 million, and Getty was released five months after being kidnapped. Getty subsequently developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol, leading to an overdose and stroke which left him severely disabled for the rest of his life.
Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) is a female-only California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison located in Chowchilla, California. It is across the road from Valley State Prison. CCWF is the second largest female correctional facility in the United States, and houses the only State of California death row for women.
Natascha Maria Kampusch is an Austrian author and former talk show host. At the age of 10, on 2 March 1998, she was abducted and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006. Upon her escape, Přiklopil killed himself by stepping in front of a train at a nearby station. She has written a book about her ordeal, 3,096 Days (2010), which was later adapted into a film and released in 2013.
Captivity is a 2007 horror film of the "torture porn" subgenre, directed by Roland Joffé, written by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura, and starring Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies. Considered an entry into a subgenre popularized by such film series as Hostel and Saw, the film centres on a young fashion model (Cuthbert) who is abducted and is psychologically tortured by unknown assailants.
The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted.
Lydia Gouardo is a French woman, born in Maisons-Alfort, Val-de-Marne, who was imprisoned for 28 years, raped, and tortured by her stepfather, Raymond Gouardo, in their home in Meaux and Coulommes in Seine et Marne. The abuse took place from 1971 to 1999.
Mellissa Fung is a Canadian journalist with CBC News, appearing regularly as a field correspondent on The National.
Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian, public speaker and journalist. On August 23, 2008, she and members of her entourage were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia. She was released 15 months later on November 25, 2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career. In 2013, she released the book, A House in the Sky: A Memoir, in which she recounts her early life, travels as a young adult, and hostage experience. In 2014, the book was optioned to become a major motion picture by Megan Ellison, with Rooney Mara playing the role of Lindhout.
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.
Ryan David Jahn is an American novelist and screenwriter.
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.
Amy Wilentz is an American journalist and writer. She is a professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, where she teaches Literary Journalism. Wilentz received a 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for her memoir, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti, as well as a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship in General Nonfiction. Wilentz is The New Yorker's former Jerusalem correspondent and is a contributing editor at The Nation.
A Stolen Life or Stolen Life may refer to:
Shyima Hall, from South Alexandria, Egypt, is known for advocating against human trafficking by sharing her personal experiences as a child slave. At eight years old, she was sold into slavery by her parents to a rich family in Cairo. Hall was given to the family in order to repay her older sister's debt of about thirty dollars. She worked for Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef and Amal Admed Ewis-Abd El Motelib for two years among other slaves. The family moved to Irvine, California where Hall was forced to live in a small room in the family's garage and do chores for the parents and their five children. A neighbor reported their suspicions to child protective services. In 2002, immigration officers came into her captors' home and took her away. She was put into foster care and lived with three foster families until she was 18. In 2014, she and Lisa Wysocky published Hidden Girl, which detailed her childhood as a slave. She now lives in Banning, California with her boyfriend and four-year-old daughter, campaigning against human trafficking by sharing her story of captivity and rescue.
Boys in the Trees is a memoir by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon.
The Pittsburg serial murders refers to the killings of one man and four women in Pittsburg, California, in late 1998 and early 1999. At the time of the killings, the city had a high crime rate, which coupled with the recent murders of several people, culminated in public outcry from both the public and the media for a resolution to the situation and capture of the supposed serial killer. Despite an investigation by the FBI and a financial reward for the killer(s)'s capture being offered by the then-Governor of California Gray Davis, none of the murders were ever solved.
