There are a lot of shows and books about this kind of thing, but I’ve never heard of it happening in real life. Have any children (say under 14) who been kidnapped by strangers ever been found alive as an adult? I know there have been cases of people claiming to be an abducted child, but AFAIK, they’ve always been lying/mistaken.
One case almost fitting your description was that of Steven Stayner. He was kidnapped at age 7 by a convicted child molester named Kenneth Parnell, who kept him as his son. Stayner was 14 when Parnell kidnapped another kid; the two boys made their way to the police and were reunited with their families.
Sadly, he died in a motorcycle accident 16 years ago today.
Freakishly, his brother Cary is currently on death row in California for murdering four women, including three in a notorious kidnapping from the lodge in Yosemite National Park where he worked.
IIRC there was case a few years ago where some older teen/young adult killed an adult caretaker claiming that the person was pedophile that had abducted them when they were very young.
And lest you think it can’t happen, there was that case in the news a few months ago where the N.Y. mother of an abducted infant identified the child several years later. The abductor, a mentally disturbed woman, had staged a fire in the (then baby’s) house to cover up the abduction.
My googling skills are failing me on both stories. The first is a vague memory, but I’m 100% sure about the second one.
There was a TV movie based on this case called I Know My First Name Is Steven in 1989, starring Corin Nemec (Parker Lewis Can’t Lose).
Google would of been more useful if you would of used Philadelphia, Pennsylvania instead of NY as where it happened.
The child was “killed” by the fire, but not really.
Thanks for the replies. It seems like the Staynor case is about as close as it’s going to get. Quite sad, the family basically lost two kids. I think I remember the second case that astro brought up (never heard about the first one). Unfortunately, it seems to be a rarity though (the kid being found okay after several years).