List of kidnappings

This is a list of kidnappings.

Kidnappings[edit]

Before 1900[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
1754	The Johnson family	Abenaki	New Hampshire, US	Age of the adults unknown; children ranged from 2 to 14	Released	The Johnson family lived on a settlement in New Hampshire called No. 4. The members of the family who were kidnapped were Captain James Johnson and his wife Susannah, Susannah's 14-year-old sister, Miriam Willard, and James and Susannah's three children, 6-year-old Sylvanus, 4-year-old Susannah, and 2-year-old Mary ("Polly"). Susannah was also pregnant with a fourth child, who would be born during captivity. The family was originally kept in an Abenaki village, but most were sold to the French and moved to Montreal after a few months, with the exception of Sylvanus, who was adopted by the Abenaki. James was given two months to pay his family's ransom, but he did not return to Montreal in time. Susannah and her two youngest daughters were imprisoned, along with James when he arrived. Susannah gave birth in prison to her second son and fifth child, as well as her second to be born in captivity, but he died soon after birth. After a year in prison, the three female Johnsons, and Miriam, who was not imprisoned with them, were all sent to England, leaving behind young Susannah in the care of three French women. James was killed in battle before seeing his wife and children again. Sylvanus was ransomed and sent back to his family at age 11, unable to speak any English. Young Susannah was sent back to her family at age 10 when the French surrendered Montreal to the British. Susannah Willard Johnson eventually remarried and wrote a book, A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, about her family's kidnapping.
1758	Mary Jemison	Seneca warriors	Adams County, Pennsylvania, US	12	Stayed with abductors	Jemison, a White child, was taken from her family by Seneca warriors. The only one not massacred in her family, Jemison was adopted into the Seneca tribe and lived the remainder of her life with them.
19 May 1836	Cynthia Ann Parker	Comanches	Fort Parker, Texas, US	9	Stayed with abductors	Parker, a Caucasian child, was taken from her family by Comanches raiding their home in Fort Parker, Texas. She lived for 24 years among the Comanche and married a war chief, Peta Nocona. She gave birth to three children, including the last war chief of the Comanche, Quanah Parker.
23 June 1858	Edgardo Mortara	Police, ordered by Pope Pius IX	Bologna, Italy	6	Stayed with abductors	Mortara, a Jewish child, was taken from his family by Pope Pius IX because a housekeeper had secretly baptized him. The child was never returned to his parents, notwithstanding the humanitarian pleas of President Ulysses S. Grant, Emperor Franz Josef, and Napoleon III. At age 18 he became an Augustinian priest, taking the name Pius.
16 March 1860	Larcena Pennington and Mercedes Sais Quiroz	Apaches	Canoa Ranch, Arizona, US	23 (Pennington) 10 (Quiroz)	Released (Pennington) Released/rescued (Quiroz)	Pennington and her student Mercedes Sais Quiroz were abducted by Apaches. Later in the day Pennington was left for dead in the wilderness. Quiroz was freed in exchange for Apache prisoners.
1 July 1874	Charles Brewster Ross	Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas	Germantown, Pennsylvania, US	4	Unknown	Charley Ross was the first American to be kidnapped for ransom who received wide public attention. He and his brother, Walter, were taken by two men from their house under the pretense of buying fireworks. Walter was sent to a fireworks shop, during which time the men left with his brother. He was quickly found, but did not know where Charley was. The primary suspects were killed before they could be proved to be the kidnappers, and Charley was never found.

1900–1949[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
18 May 1904	Ion Perdicaris and Cromwell Varley	Bandits sent by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli	Tangier, Morocco	64 (Perdicaris)	Released	Perdicaris and his stepson Cromwell Varley were kidnapped by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, causing US Secretary of State John Hay to declare, "This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The two men were released alive when ransom demands were paid.
8 April 1911	Elsie Paroubek	Unknown	Chicago, Illinois, US	5	Murdered	Paroubek was a Czech-American girl who disappeared while walking alone to her aunt's house (around the corner from where Paroubek lived) in Chicago. Her body was found a month later in a drainage ditch. Several people, including Paroubek's father and the police in charge of the investigation, believed gypsies (who had several camps in the area at the time) were involved.
23 August 1912	Bobby Dunbar	Unknown	St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, US	4	Unknown	Bobby Dunbar was a child who disappeared near Swayze Lake. After an eight-month nationwide search, investigators found a child, claimed by Dunbar's parents as their son, in the hands of William Cantwell Walters of Mississippi, who was convicted of kidnapping. Walters told the police the boy was given to him by his mother, and that his name was Charles Bruce Anderson. Julia Anderson, Bruce's mother, backed him up. In 2004, further investigation by "Dunbar's" granddaughter led to conclusive DNA proof that the child in Walters' custody was not the Dunbars' son and that the Walters had been wrongfully convicted, meaning the boy was, in fact, Charles Bruce Anderson.
15 December 1927	Marion Parker	William Hickman	Los Angeles, California, US	12	Murdered	Parker, the daughter of a Los Angeles banker, was kidnapped and killed by William Hickman. A few days after being paid a small ransom, Hickman was arrested and tried. On 19 October 1928, he was executed for his crime.
1 March 1932	Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.	Bruno Richard Hauptmann	East Amwell Township, New Jersey, US	1	Murdered	Charles was the son of American aviator Charles Lindbergh. On 1 March, the 20-month-old child was taken from his crib in his home in an act dubbed "the crime of the century". After ransom negotiations were unsuccessful, his remains were found by a passing truck driver on 12 May. Hauptmann was convicted of the crime on 13 February 1935, sentenced to death, and electrocuted on 3 April 1936. Congress passed the "Lindbergh Law", formally known as "The Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932", on 13 June 1932. The law was created to allow federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim.
15 May 1930	Mary Agnes Moroney	Unknown	Chicago, Illinois, US	2	Unknown	Moroney was taken from her home by a woman who identified herself as "Julia Otis" and claimed to have been sent by a social worker. Her kidnapping is the oldest unsolved case of this nature in the files of the Chicago Missing Persons Bureau.
27 May 1933	Mary McElroy	George McGee, Walter McGee, Clarence Click, and Clarence Stevens	Kansas City, Missouri, US	25	Released	McElroy, the daughter of City Manager Henry McElroy of Kansas City, was kidnapped and held for ransom. She was released unharmed after the ransom was paid. The four kidnappers were later apprehended and given life sentences.
9 November 1933	Brooke Hart	Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes	San Jose, California, US	22	Murdered	Hart, the son of a San Jose, California businessman, was kidnapped and murdered thereafter. His kidnappers were lynched by a mob.
25 April 1934	June Robles	Unknown	Tucson, Arizona, US	6	Released/rescued	Robles was abducted and held for ransom. After negotiations between her parents and her captors, she was found unharmed on a highway after nineteen days in captivity. Only one arrest was made in connection with her abduction.
19 September 1934	Dorothy Ann Distelhurst	Unknown	East Nashville, Tennessee, US	5	Murdered	Distelhurst was walking from school to her home when she disappeared, wearing a blue-and-white plaid dress and carrying a pink lunch pail. After media attention her parents received multiple ransom notes. It was never determined if they were genuine or fake. Her remains were found on 13 November 1934, buried under a flower bed in the corner of the Davidson County Tuberculosis Hospital. Her skull had been crushed and her face had been destroyed by acid. Her killer remains still unknown.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]
12 December 1936	Chiang Kai-shek	Zhang Xueliang	Xi'an, China	49	Released	Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China, was kidnapped by a warlord in an affair known as the Xi'an Incident.
27 December 1936	Charles Mattson	Unknown	Tacoma, Washington, US	10	Murdered	Mattson was abducted from his home and held for $28,000. He was found dead in January 1937.
22 September 1937	Yevgeny Miller	Nikolai Skoblin and NKVD officers	Paris, France	69	Murdered	Miller, an anti-bolshevik Russian general, was kidnapped by NKVD agents. The NKVD successfully smuggled him back to Moscow, Russia where he was tortured and subsequently shot nineteen months later, in 1939.

1950–1979[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
1950-	South Koreans abducted by North Koreans	Agents and soldiers	South Korea			Approximately 84,532 South Koreans were taken to North Korea during the Korean War. Since the war ended in 1953, about 3,800 people have been abducted.
28 September 1953	Robert "Bobby" Cosgrove Greenlease, Jr.	Bonnie Heady and Carl A. Hall	Kansas City, Missouri, US	6	Murdered	Greenlease was kidnapped and immediately murdered. The murderers demanded and were paid a $600,000 ransom by the boy's father, a wealthy automobile dealer. Notable in the case was the fact that more than half of the ransom money was stolen by a corrupt police officer and never recovered.
4 July 1956	Peter Weinberger	Angelo LaMarca	Westbury, New York, US	1 month	Died	LaMarca took the baby from his home for a $2,000 ransom. He told investigators he went to the first drop site the day after the kidnapping with the baby in the car, but was scared away by all of the press and police in the area. He drove away, abandoned the baby alive in some heavy brush just off a highway exit, and went home. A search of the area by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and Nassau County Police Department ensued.^[6] An FBI agent spotted a diaper pin, then the decomposed remains of Peter Weinberger. The Weinberger case also resulted in new legislation, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which reduced the FBI's waiting period in kidnapping cases from 7 days to 24 hours.^[6] LaMarca was executed via electric chair on 7 August 1958.
9 February 1960	Adolph Coors III	Joseph Corbett Jr.	Morrison, Colorado, US	44	Murdered	Corbett attempted to kidnap Coors on a single-lane bridge outside of Morrison, Colorado, but a struggle ensued and Corbett shot Coors twice in the back, killing him. Corbett then dumped Coors' dead body near Pikes Peak and mailed a ransom note demanding $500,000. That night, Corbett mistakenly believed he was being watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and left Denver the following morning. He was captured nine months later in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and convicted of first degree murder.^[7]
7 July 1960	Graeme Thorne	Stephen Leslie Bradley	New South Wales, Australia	8	Murdered	Graeme's parents, Basil and Freda Thorne, won the £100,000 Opera House Lottery (at that time, the names of winners were published). Five weeks later Stephen Leslie Bradley abducted Graeme and demanded a ransom. He was killed and dumped, the partially decomposed body being discovered on 16 August. The case led to tighter rules about the publication of the names of lottery winners.
27 April 1964^[8]	Paul Joseph Fronczak	Unknown	Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, US	1 day	Unknown	Paul was one day old when he was abducted from the Michael Reese hospital by a woman posing as a nurse. A year later a baby was found outside a variety store in Newark, New Jersey and was believed to be the stolen baby, who was reunited with his family. In August 2013 it was determined with DNA testing that Paul is not the biological child of the Fronczaks. The case has since been re-opened.^[9]^[10]
28 March 1966	Danny Goldman	Unknown	Surfside, Florida, US	17	Unknown	An intruder broke into the home of the Goldman family and demanded $10,000. When he did not get the money, he abducted Danny Goldman and said that he wanted $25,000 by the end of the day. The kidnapper never contacted the family and Goldman was never found. Speculation surfaced that organized crime was behind the kidnapping because Goldman's father was involved in several banks that were controlled by organized crime figures.^[11]^[12]
25 August 1969	Rosemary Calandriello	Robert Zarinsky	Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, US	17	Murdered	A girl was believed to be kidnapped and murdered by Zarinsky, who was later convicted of her murder, despite her body has never been located.
31 October 1969	Pamela Hobley and Patricia Spencer	Unknown	Oscoda, Michigan, US	15, 16	Unknown	Two teenage girls were believed to have been kidnapped prior to a scheduled party after a football game. Both are presumed dead.
29 December 1969	Muriel McKay	Arthur Hosein and Nizamodeen Hosein	Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom	55	Unknown (presumed murdered)	Trinidadian brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein attempted to kidnap Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of tycoon Rupert Murdoch, for a £1 million ransom, but abducted the wife of Murdoch’s deputy chairman, Alick McKay, instead. During the investigation, many attempts were made to find the victim - family friends even consulted the psychic Gerard Croiset to help - but the body of Mrs. McKay was never found. In early 1970 the Hosein brothers were caught and convicted of kidnap and murder, the first case in British history of a murder conviction without a body.
1970s–1980s	Japanese abducted by North Koreans	Government agents	Japan			17 Japanese people are officially recognized as having been abducted, but there are up to hundreds of possible cases.
5 October 1970	James Cross and Pierre Laporte	Front de libération du Québec militants	Quebec, Canada	49	Released (Cross) Murdered (Laporte)	Cross was a British diplomat and Laporte was a Quebec provincial politician. Their kidnappings set off the 1970 October Crisis. Cross was released in exchange for passage of his abductors to Cuba.
1972–1985	"The Disappeared"	IRA and INLA	Northern Ireland		Murdered	Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Joseph Lynskey, Peter Wilson, Eamon Molloy, Columba McVeigh, Brendan McGraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Danny McIlhone, Gerard Evans, Charlie Armstrong and Seamus Ruddy were a group of both civilians and Irish republican volunteers who were kidnapped, possibly tortured, and murdered by the IRA and INLA during Northern Ireland's "Troubles" for being alleged spies, informants, thieves, etc. Their bodies were not recovered until eight of the corpses or remains were eventually located and returned to their families for burial. Another man who disappeared during this time was Robert Nairac, a British SAS officer whose identity was uncovered.
4 December 1972	Steven Stayner	Kenneth Parnell and Ervin Edward Murphy	Merced, California, US	7	Escaped	Stayner was kidnapped on his way home from school. He was raised as Parnell's son for seven years until Parnell abducted another child, Timmy White, in 1980. The two boys escaped on 1 March 1980. At the time of Steven's return, it was the longest known kidnapping in America that ended in a safe return.
27 January 1973	Dawn Lee Swan Magyar	Jerald Wingeart	Owosso, Michigan, US	20	Murdered	Magyar was abducted while grocery shopping. Her body was later found. She was raped and shot multiple times and her murder remained unsolved until 2001.
26 July 1973	Janice Pockett	Unknown	Tolland, Connecticut, US	7	Unknown	Janice asked her mother if she could ride off by herself. It was the first time she had been allowed to go anywhere by herself. She would never return. Her bike would be found less than a mile away from her home abandoned on a dirt road close to the woods. There were hundreds of names of possible suspects, but no corroborating evidence to substantiate them as suspects. The case has been re-opened many times and is still an open case as of 2018. The Discovery Network featured her story in Dark Minds and a Facebook page is dedicated to her being missing.^[13]^[14]^[15]
27 December 1973	Thomas Niedermayer	Provisional IRA	Belfast, Northern Ireland	45	Murdered	Niedermayer was a German national and the manager of a Grundig factory in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He died shortly after being abducted by the IRA from his home in Belfast. His remains were eventually found, buried in an embankment near Belfast, on 11 March 1980.
1975	Suzanne Marie Sevakis	Franklin Delano Floyd	North Carolina, US	5	Raised by kidnapper, later murdered	A woman going by the name of Sharon Marshall was murdered in 1990 in her early 20s. It was discovered following her death that her husband, who was much older, actually raised her from an early age. DNA testing determined they were not biological relatives. He gave inconsistent stories regarding how she came to be in his custody. Floyd is the prime suspect in Marshall's death. Her true identity remained a mystery until 2014, when DNA testing confirmed that Sharon Marshall was Suzanne Marie Sevakig. Floyd was married to Sevakig's mother when she was sentenced to 30 days in jail for a minor crime. He was left to care for her four children while she was incarcerated. After she was released, she found that the children and Floyd had disappeared. She found two children in the care of the local social services where he left them, but Suzanne and her younger brother were never found and the boy's fate remains unknown. The mother attempted to file kidnapping charges but the local police declined, telling her that the child's stepfather had parental rights over the children.^[16]
4 February 1974	Patty Hearst	Symbionese Liberation Army	Berkeley, California, US	19	Stayed with abductors until arrested	Hearst, an heiress to the Hearst Corporation mass media fortune, was kidnapped from her apartment by a left-wing guerilla group. She announced her allegiance to the group in April 1974, and on 15 April 1974 took part in a bank robbery. She is thought to have been a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.^[17] Captured by the FBI in September 1975, Hearst was sentenced to 35 years in prison for bank robbery. She served 22 months and was released from prison on 1 February 1979. President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon on 20 January 2001.
14 January 1975	Lesley Whittle	Donald Neilson	Highley, England	17	Murdered	Whittle was an heiress kidnapped from her home by Neilson, also known as the "Black Panther". Her body was found on 7 March 1975, hanging from a wire in a drain shaft in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. Neilson was captured and convicted, and died in December 2011 while serving life in prison.^[18]
27 February 1975	Peter Lorenz	Movement 2 June	West Berlin, Germany	52	Released	Lorenz, German conservative politician and candidate for the mayor of West Berlin, was kidnapped only days before the elections. He was released unharmed after a week in exchange for five imprisoned leftist extremists, who were flown out to South Yemen. He won the majority of the votes while in captivity.
25 March 1975	Katherine and Sheila Lyon	Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr.	Wheaton, Maryland, US	Katherine 10, Sheila 12	Unknown	The Lyon sisters were at Wheaton Plaza mall, not far from their home, when they disappeared without a trace. Their brother and other people they knew had seen them eating at a restaurant in the mall, and one boy said he saw them speaking to an unknown man and talking into a recorder. Another man who would later be convicted of rape was seen paying attention to the sisters. They were never found. In 2013, a cold case team noticed a striking resemblance between a sketch in the case file and a mug shot of Welch from the late 1970s. In 2015 Welsh was charged, and in September 2017 he was sentenced to 48 years in prison.^[19]
19 May 1977	Colleen Stan	Cameron Hooker	Red Bluff, California, US	20	Escaped	Stan was kidnapped by Hooker while hitchhiking. She was tortured and sexually abused over seven years until Hooker's wife, Janice, helped her escape in 1984.
12 June 1977	Oklahoma Girl Scout murders	Unknown	Mayes County, Oklahoma, US	8-10	Murdered	The Oklahoma Girl Scout murders is an unresolved crime that occurred at Camp Scott. The victims were three Girl Scouts, who were raped and murdered and their bodies left in the woods near their tent at summer camp. The case was classified as "solved" when Gene Leroy Hart, a local jail escapee with a history of violence, was arrested, and stood trial for the crime; he was acquitted. Thirty years later authorities conducted new DNA testing, but the results proved inconclusive, as the samples were too old.
5 September 1977	Hanns-Martin Schleyer	Brigitte Mohnhaupt and the Red Army Faction	Cologne, Germany	62	Murdered	Schleyer, a German manager, was kidnapped by the extreme-left militant organisation Red Army Faction, carried out by Mohnhaupt. He was hidden in a high-rise in Erftstadt. After the imprisoned RAF members were found dead in their prison cells in Stammheim Prison, he was killed on 18 October 1977. His body was found in a car in Mulhouse.
15 November 1977	Megumi Yokota	North Korea government	Niigata Prefecture, North Korea	13	Unknown	Megumi Yokota is a Japanese woman who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977, when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least 17 Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that Yokota is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan.^[20]
16 March 1978	Aldo Moro	Red Brigades	Rome, Italy	61	Murdered	Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, was captured by a Marxist-Leninist urban guerilla organization and killed almost two months later.
25 April 1978	Lee Kim Lai	Ong Chin Hock, Yeo Ching Boon and Ong Hwee Kuan	Mount Vernon, Singapore	18	Murdered	Kim Lai was a police officer who was kidnapped from a sentry post and killed for his gun.
1979-1980 (exact date unknown)	Eklutna Annie	Robert Hansen	Anchorage, Alaska, US	Between 16 and 25	Murdered	An unidentified female was kidnapped by a serial killer. She was described as either a prostitute or a topless dancer who attempted to escape from a vehicle after she was abducted. The victim was then stabbed in the back and buried in Eklutna, Alaska. She was found on July 21, 1980, between a month and a year after her death.
25 May 1979	Etan Patz	Unknown	New York City, US	6	Unknown (declared legally dead)	Etan walked to the school bus stop by himself, but did not arrive at school. The search for him brought attention to child abduction in the United States, and he was the first missing person to be pictured on a milk carton. The anniversary of his disappearance is International Missing Children's Day. Pedro Hernandez was charged with Etan's murder, but his 2015 trial ended in a hung jury. His retrial ended in guilty convictions for murder and kidnapping, with a life sentence and possibility of parole after 25 years.

1980–1989[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
14 February 1980	Timmy White	Kenneth Parnell	Ukiah, California, US	5	Escaped/rescued	White was abducted by Parnell, who had abducted Steven Stayner seven years earlier. Stayner helped White escape on 1 March 1980.
13 June 1980	Tiffany Papesh	Brandon Flagner	Maple Heights, Ohio, US	8	Murdered	A girl was kidnapped while shopping alone for a family member. Flagner was convicted of her murder, despite the fact that her body was never found. He eventually recanted his confession. His conviction has yet to be overturned.^[21]^[22]
3 December 1980	Patsy Gaisior	Robert Ruff, Frank Johnson	Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US	31	Murdered	The body of the victim was never recovered, but two suspects were convicted.^[23]
1981	Bryon Anthony "Bizzy Bone" McCane II	Byron McCane	Columbus, Ohio, US	5	Rescued	McCane was kidnapped by his stepfather and was led to believe that his grandmother and mother were dead. He didn't reunite with his mother until a neighbor from the reservation in Oklahoma where he was living recognized his picture from a photo shown at the end of the 1983 movie, Adam. McCane grew up to become a rap artist.
Between 1981 and 1983	Newton County John Does	Larry Eyler	Lake Village, Indiana, US	Between 15 and 23	Murdered	Two unidentified teenagers or young adults were murdered by a serial killer in the early 1980s.
27 July 1981	Adam Walsh	Ottis Toole	Hollywood, Florida, US	6	Murdered	Walsh was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall and was later found murdered. His father, John Walsh, later became the host of America's Most Wanted.
29 October 1981	Tina Harmon	Robert Anthony Buell	Lodi, Ohio, US	12	Murdered	The subject was abducted while away from her home in Creston, Ohio. She was found raped and strangled five days later. Her murder remained unsolved until 2011, when DNA from the scene was matched to Robert Buell. It is unknown if Buell was the only person involved in her murder.
17 December 1981	James Lee Dozier	Red Brigades	Verona, Italy	50	Rescued	Dozier was a US general working for NATO in Italy. He and his wife were kidnapped by a Marxist terrorist group and freed by a NOCS commando on 28 January 1982.
18 December 1981	Nina von Gallwitz (de)	Unknown	Cologne, Germany	8	Released	Von Gallwitz was kidnapped on her way to school. Her parents paid a ransom of 1.5 million German marks and she was freed on 15 May 1982 at a rest area called Ohligser Heide, after 149 days.
17 July 1982	Krista Harrison	Robert Anthony Buell	Marshallville, Ohio, US	11	Murdered	The victim was abducted by van at a park near her home. She was found six days later. Buell was convicted in 1984.
c. 23 February 1983	St. Louis Jane Doe	Unknown	St. Louis, Missouri, US	Between 8 and 11	Murdered	The decapitated body of a girl was found on February 28, 1983. She had been bound, raped and strangled. Her murder remains unsolved and her body has never been identified.
6 July 1983	Tammy Lynn Leppert	Unknown	Rockledge, Florida, US	18	Unknown	Leppert was a former child actress and model who disappeared in unknown circumstances.
1 June 1984	Mark Tildesley	Sidney Cooke	Wokingham, Berkshire, England	7	Murdered	Tildesley disappeared while visiting a funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire, during the evening. He was lured away from the fair and his bicycle was found chained to railings nearby.^[24] In 1990 it emerged that he had been abducted, drugged, tortured, raped and murdered by a London-based paedophile gang.^[24]^[25]
19 July 1984	Edith Rosenkranz	Glenn I. Wright and Dennis Moss	Washington, D.C., US		Released	Edith, wife of Dr. George Rosenkranz, a wealthy Mexico City businessman, was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Washington-Sheraton Hotel during an American Contract Bridge League national tournament. She was returned unharmed two days later after her husband paid a ransom of USD $1,000,000. The ransom money was later recovered and the two kidnappers were later convicted and sentenced, as was a third defendant, Orland D. Tolden.^[26]
29 August 1984	Elisabeth Fritzl	Josef Fritzl	Amstetten, Austria	18	Released	Elisabeth was held captive in a concealed corridor part of the basement area of the large family house by her father, Josef Fritzl, who physically assaulted, sexually abused, and raped her numerous times during her imprisonment. The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children and one miscarriage. One child died shortly after birth, three children joined their mother in captivity, and three were raised by Josef and his wife Rosemarie and reported to authorities as foundlings. Elisabeth and her three captive children were released by Josef in 2008 when one child became seriously ill. Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for charges of murder by negligence of his infant son/grandson, as well as the enslavement, incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment of Elisabeth.
9 October 1984	Kim Sue Leggett	Unknown	Mercedes, Texas, US	21	Unknown	On October 9, Kim Sue Leggett disappeared around 5 pm from her place of employment. She left behind a 1-year-old son and a husband. Kim's parents got two phone calls on the day she went missing. The caller said they had abducted Kim and wanted ransom. Later her parents also got a ransom note demanding $250,000. They never heard from the alleged kidnappers again.^[27]^[28]^[29]
19 January 1985	Toni Jean Gibbs	Faryion Wardrip	Wichita, Texas, US	23	Murdered	Gibbs, a nurse, was abducted after completing her shift at a hospital. She was kidnapped and her abandoned car was found soon after. Her body was found a month later. Faryion Wardrip was convicted of her murder in 1999.
7 February 1985	Enrique Camarena	Unknown	La Angostura, Mexico	37	Murdered	Camarena, a Mexican American DEA official, was abducted by drug lords and tortured. He was found dead on 5 March 1985.
20 September 1985	Ellen Blau	Faryion Wardrip	Wichita Falls, Texas, US	21	Murdered	Blau was abducted after working as a waitress. Faryion Wardrip was convicted of her murder in 1999.
9 October 1985	Sarah Pryor	Unknown	Wayland, Massachusetts, US	9	Murdered	Pryor disappeared while walking through her neighbourhood. Her fate was unknown until 1998 when DNA tests proved that skull fragments discovered in the woods belonged to her. Her killer was never identified.^[30]^[31]
9 November 1985	Alexander Olive	Ulysses Roberson	South Lake Tahoe, California, US	4	Murdered	The subject's body was never found, but his father was convicted of his abduction and murder.
6 April 1986	Anthonette Cayedito	Unknown	Gallup, New Mexico, US	9	Unknown	Cayedito was kidnapped from her home. She was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries a few years after her disappearance. It is believed that she phoned 911 a year after her kidnapping in a desperate attempt to be rescued. She may have also been seen by a waitress in Las Vegas a few years later. The girl has never been located.^{[citation needed]}
24 May 1986	Michelle Dorr	Hadden Clark	Silver Spring, Maryland, US	6	Murdered	A girl was kidnapped while playing outside her home.
30 September 1986	Mordechai Vanunu	Mossad	Rome, Italy	31	Released	Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear whistleblower, was lured to Italy from London,^[32] where he was abducted by Mossad and brought back to Israel, where he was convicted of treason and espionage. He served 18 years in prison, eleven of which were in solitary confinement.
4 August 1987	Carlina White	Annugetta "Ann" Pettway	New York City, US	19 days	Escaped	White was taken from Harlem Hospital Center as an infant and raised by Pettway. She was reunited with her family in January 2011, 23 years later, in the longest known non-parental abduction.
9 September 1987	Gerrit Jan Heijn	Ferdi Elsas	Bloemendaal, Netherlands	56	Murdered	Heijn was a Dutch businessman, the top executive of Ahold, Holland's largest retailer. He was killed shortly after his abduction. Elsas pretended the victim was still alive and received a ransom. He was caught after spending one of the banknotes of the ransom, whose numbers had been recorded. He was released in 2001 after serving a prison sentence but was killed in a road accident.^{[citation needed]}
20 September 1988	Tara Calico	Unknown	Belen, New Mexico, US	19	Unknown	Calico disappeared near her home after taking her usual bike ride. Several witnesses claimed she was being followed by a 1953-54 Ford Pickup and was never heard from again. No sign of Calico was found until On 15 June 1989 when a woman found a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young girl and boy, both bound and gagged, in the parking lot of a convenience store in Port St. Joe, Florida. The girl in the photo is believed to be Calico, but this has not been confirmed. Two other photographs, possibly of Calico, have surfaced over the years, but have yet to be released to the public. It is unclear whether Calico is still alive.^{[citation needed]}
19 November 1988	Michaela Garecht	Unknown	Hayward, California, US	9	Unknown	Garecht was abducted by a Caucasian male thought to be about 18–24 years old. She rode to a small neighborhood market on her scooter. When she tried to grab her scooter, a man forced her into his car. Neither Garecht or the abductor have been seen or heard from since.
13 December 1988	Joaquin Esteves	Orlando Cruz Vasquez	San Jose, California, US	64	Murdered	A suspect was convicted of the victim's murder, yet no body was ever recovered.^[33]
14 January 1989	Paul Vanden Boeynants	Patrick Haemers and a gang	Belgium	69	Released	Vanden Boeynants, a Belgian politician, was released one month after his abduction when a ransom was paid.
22 October 1989	Jacob Wetterling	Danny Heinrich	St. Joseph, Minnesota, US	11	Murdered	Wetterling was kidnapped on his way home by a masked gunman.
27 October 1989	Amy Mihaljevic	Unknown	Bay Village, Ohio, US	10	Murdered	The victim was lured by an unidentified assailant through telephone to run an errand for her mother. The girl had been seen meeting the subject at a plaza and was never seen alive again. Her body was found in 1990. The case remains unsolved.

1990–1999[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
2 April 1990	Humberto Álvarez Machaín	Bounty hunters	Mexico		Released	Alvarez-Machain, a suspect in the murder of Enrique Camarena, was kidnapped, allegedly by Americans to bring him to trial in the United States.
20 May 1990	Susan Poupart	Unknown	Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, US	29	Murdered	The victim was abducted and murdered. Three are considered primary suspects, but the murder remains unsolved.
13 November 1990	Sano Fusako	Nobuyuki Satō	Niigata, Japan	10	Rescued	Fusako was abducted after a baseball game and held captive for slightly over nine years. She was found alive on 28 January 2000.
10 June 1991	Jaycee Lee Dugard	Phillip Garrido and Nancy Garrido	South Lake Tahoe, California, US	11	Rescued	Dugard was kidnapped from a bus stop and held captive for 18 years. She was found alive by parole officers on 26 August 2009 due to a tip from campus police officers from the University of California, Berkeley. During captivity she gave birth to two children.
29 June 1991	Sheree Beasley	Robert Selby Lowe	Rosebud, Australia	6	Murdered	The child was abducted while riding her bike unsupervised. She was raped and asphyxiated, and her body was found several months later. Lowe was convicted of her murder.
11 September 1991	Carrie Lawson	Jerry Bland	Jasper, Alabama, US	25	Murdered	Lawson was a young lawyer kidnapped in a case bungled by the FBI. A ransom demand of $300,000 was made, which was paid by the family. The FBI inserted tracking devices in the money bag and on the delivery person, but both were on the same frequency and the FBI tracked the delivery person, leaving the money drop by mistake. After later getting a break in the case, the FBI went to the home of suspect Jerry Bland, who refused entry. While officers were retrieving a search warrant left in the car, the suspect retreated inside and shot himself, taking any information on Lawson's whereabouts to his grave. Neither she nor her remains were ever found. The ransom money was mostly recovered from the suspect's attic and vehicle.^[34]
26 May 1992	Prince Pedro Thiago of Orléans-Braganza		Petrópolis, Brazil	13	Rescued	Thiago was kidnapped on his way to school. He was rescued by police a week later from the house in a Rio de Janeiro suburb where he was being held.^[35]
28 December 1992	Katie Beers	John Esposito	Long Island, New York, US	9	Released/rescued	Two days before her tenth birthday, Beers was lured into the home of John Esposito, a friend of her family. She was held captive inside a concrete bunker underneath Esposito's garage. He falsely claimed that Beers was kidnapped by a third party in an amusement park, but 17 days after the abduction, he took police to where he was holding her.
12 February 1993	James Bulger	Robert Thompson and Jon Venables	Merseyside, England	2	Murdered	Bulger was abducted from a Merseyside shopping centre by a pair of ten-year-old boys. Later in the day the boys tortured Bulger to death and left his body on a train line.
18 August 1993	Sara Ann Wood	Lewis Lent	Frankfort, New York, US	12	Unknown	Wood disappeared on a quiet road near her home. A known murderer named Lewis S. Lent Jr. was charged with abducting Wood in 1996, three years after she was last seen,^[36] the reason being that Lent originally had claimed that he had killed Sara and that he had buried her body in the Adirondacks. But when he drew a map of the burial location for the police, extensive searches were conducted, but did not produce any evidence as to Wood's whereabouts and nothing was found.^[37] Lent had also pleaded guilty to the 1990 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Pittsfield, Massachusetts, native Jimmy Bernardo. Lent abducted Bernardo from the Pittsfield movie theater where Lent worked as a janitor. Lent later recanted to killing Wood, yet he was sentenced to 25-years-to-life for the Wood murder, and was sentenced to life without parole for the Bernardo murder, and is in prison in Massachusetts. He is suspected in a number of other child kidnapping cases.
4 September 1993	Ashley Estell	Unknown	Plano, Texas, US	7	Unknown	Estell was last seen with her parents at a soccer tournament at Carpenter Park heading towards a playground.^[38] Michael Blair was convicted for the murder but later exhonorated after a DNA test proved he was not the killer.^[39]
1 October 1993	Polly Klaas	Richard Allen Davis	Petaluma, California, US	12	Murdered	Klaas was kidnapped from her home and later strangled. Davis' car got stuck in the mud a few miles from Klaas' house. A local police officer pulled him out of the mud, but did not query his license number with the police computer system, nor did he hear the BOLO (be on the lookout) broadcast to all CHP radios reporting that Davis was wanted for a parole violation. Davis has been convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder and sentenced to death. BOLOs are now broadcast to all police radios: state, county, and municipal.
30 June 1994	Crystal Ann Tymich	Unknown	Los Angeles, California, US	6	Unknown	Tymich was last seen playing near her house, wearing a pink T-shirt, floral shorts, and white Little Mermaid sneakers. She had been picking peaches with her three brothers, but they went inside and she was gone when they came back out to bring her home. None of the neighbors saw anything unusual.
12 September 1994	Michael Anthony Hughes	Franklin Delano Floyd	Choctaw, Oklahoma, US	6	Unknown	Hughes was abducted from his elementary school by his stepfather, Franklin Delano Floyd. Two months later, Floyd was arrested in Kentucky, but the boy was not with him. He has given inconsistent statements regarding the boy's whereabouts, but Hughes was never located. It was later discovered that Hughes' mother, Sharon Marshall, was not only Floyd's wife, but was actually raised by Floyd from an early age and was herself kidnapped by Floyd. She died when Hughes was two years old. Floyd is the prime suspect in her murder as well.
14 August 1994	Jameika Porch	Unknown	Chattanooga, Tennessee, US	4	Murdered	Porch was abducted from her bedroom at her grandmother's home. Her remains were discovered in 2000. It was determined that she was strangled by ligature shortly after she vanished.
17 August 1994	Mindy Tran	Unknown	Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada	8	Murdered	Tran disappeared from her neighbourhood just after supper. She rode her bike down her quiet street and vanished. Hundreds of people searched for the girl but her body wasn't found until six weeks later when a man with a divining rod led police to a shallow grave near her parents' home. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
6 January 1995	Melanie Carpenter	Fernard Auger	Surrey, British Columbia, Canada	23	Murdered	Carpenter was abducted from a Fleetwood Town Centre tanning salon, and was found dead three weeks later concealed by a white blanket, in a crevice near an isolated road, four kilometres north of Yale, B.C.
9 June 1995	Morgan Nick	Unknown	Alma, Arkansas, US	6	Unknown	Nick was at a baseball game with her mother. She was last seen at her car after catching fireflies with her friends, and she was also seen talking to a man who police believe was her abductor. She has not been found; her mother started a foundation to help families with missing children.
11 September 1995	Jimmy Ryce	Juan Carlos Chavez	Redland, Florida, US	9	Murdered	Ryce was supposed to be coming home from school but never came back. Juan Carlos Chavez took responsibility and led police to the body he had sexually assaulted, decapitated, and dismembered.
16 September 1995	Jessyca Mullenburg	Steven Oliver	Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US	13	Rescued	Oliver had first met Mullenberg when he was an aide at her school, and became obsessed with her. He followed her and her father as they moved to two locations in Wisconsin. He eventually moved across the street from the Mullenbergs in Eau Claire. Oliver told Mullenburg that a publisher was interested in a story that she wrote; she agreed to go with him in his car. Mullenberg dozed off in the car, and when she awoke, her feet and hands were bound. After an eight-hour drive to Kansas City, Mullenberg and Oliver boarded a plane to Houston, where she spent the majority of her three-and-a-half-month captivity in a motel room. Mullenberg says that physical, sexual and mental abuse were common. Within weeks, Oliver had convinced Mullenberg that her parents didn't want to get her back and didn't love her. Mullenberg says she became so completely disconnected from reality that she remembered very little from her past. A chance viewing of America's Most Wanted on television confirmed the manager's suspicions that Oliver was up to something. Immediately after recognizing Oliver's photo on the show, calls were placed to law enforcement and the FBI. Authorities who raced to the hotel knew who Mullenberg was, but after months in captivity, she did not. Only after authorities showed Mullenberg pictures from her past did she come back to reality.
November 16, 1995	Elijah Evans	Jacqueline Williams, Fedell Caffey, Lavern Ward	Addison, Illinois, US	Fetus	Rescued	Deborah Evans was nine months pregnant when she was murdered and had her unborn son cut from her womb. Evans had three other children: 10-year-old Samantha, 7-year-old Joshua, and 18-month-old Jordan. Evans' ex-boyfriend Laverne Ward was the father of both Jordan and the unborn baby. Evans had a restraining order against Ward but allowed the trio into her home. Williams faked a pregnancy to keep her boyfriend, Fedell Caffey. Caffey was aware that Williams was not pregnant, and participated in the abduction and murder. Williams, Ward and Caffey killed Evans and Samantha in their home and abducted Joshua, killing him the next day. His body was found in an alley in a nearby town. Williams convinced friends and family that she had given birth to the infant. Jordan was left unharmed in the house with the bodies of his mother and sister. Police were called to the house by Evans' current boyfriend and tracked down the killers and the stolen infant. When police took the baby from Williams she screamed, "That is my baby!" Williams received two life terms, and Ward 1 life term.^{[clarification needed]} Caffey was given the death penalty.^{[citation needed]}
7 December 1995	Barbara Barnes	Unknown	Steubenville, Ohio, US	13	Murdered	Victim was abducted after walking to school. Her body was found months later. The case remains unsolved.
13 January 1996	Amber Hagerman	Unknown	Arlington, Texas, US	9	Murdered	Hagerman was kidnapped while riding her bike near her grandparents' home. She was found four days later by a hiker and his dog, naked in a creek bed. An autopsy revealed she had been alive for two days, and then had been raped and had her throat slit. Although a $75,000 reward was offered for information leading to Hagerman's killer, he was never found.^[40] The task force investigating Amber's murder was dissolved in June 1997.^[41] Her murder inspired the creation of the AMBER Alert system.
17 May 1996	Le-Zhan Williams	Latasha Ann Brown	Vallejo, California, US	3 weeks	Rescued	Baby Le-Zhan's mother, Daphne Boyden, was shot and her house was burned down, with no sign of her son. He was found six years later living as the son of Latasha Brown. His father, rapper Young Lay, was serving a prison sentence when his son was found.
28 May 1996	Sabine Dardenne	Marc Dutroux	Belgium	12	Rescued	Dardenne was kidnapped and raped by Dutroux, a serial killer, while on her way to school. She was rescued after 80 days, on 15 August 1996, with 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez, who had also been kidnapped.
9 August 1996	Laetitia Delhez	Marc Dutroux	Belgium	14	Rescued	Dutroux kidnapped Delhez after another victim, Sabine Dardenne, had requested a companion because she felt so alone. They were rescued on 15 August 1996.
1 October 1996	Jakub Fiszman	Rainer Körppen and Sven Körppen	Eschborn, Germany	40	Murdered	Fiszman, a millionaire, was held for ransom. He was killed by his kidnappers even though the ransom for him was paid. The perpetrators were arrested on 19 October and received long prison sentences.
30 April 1997	Zephany Nurse	(Identity withheld by court order)	Cape Town, South Africa	2 days	Found, February 2015	Zephany was taken shortly after birth and raised by the kidnapper's family as one of their own. She was found when her biological sister started at the same school, and friends commented that they looked like sisters.
6 May 1997	Kerry Whelan	Bruce Burrell	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	39	Murdered	A woman was believed to have been murdered by her employer. Her body has never been found, but Burrell was convicted in 2006 during his second trial.
3 June 1997	Shannon Verhage	Marvin Gabrion	Cedar Springs, Michigan	11 months	Unknown	Shannon and her mother, Rachel Timmerman, were last seen leaving on a date with an unknown co-worker of Timmerman. The co-worker was later linked to a man named Marvin Gabrion, whom Rachel was preparing to testify against for raping her the previous year. Rachel's body was later found floating in Oxford lake. Gabrion is on death row for the murder. Shannon has never been found.
16 September 1997	Britteny Ann Beers	Unknown	Sturgis, Michigan, US	6	Unknown	6-year-old Britteny was last seen in the early evening after she went outside to ride her bicycle. Her mother left to do some errands. Her half-brother said he saw his sister sitting on a bench. Others had seen her speaking to an unidentified male driving a red or brown mid-size vehicle. Britteny walked over to the witness and told him that she 'made a new friend'. She has never seen again. In 2016 there was a significant lead after a killer confessed to the murder on Jodi Parrack. Similarities in both cases raised red flags. The murderer of Jodi Parrack, Daniel Furlong, after hours-long interrogation, said that he did not kill Britteny. The case remains open.^[42]^[43]^[44]
30 September 1997	Walter Kwok	Cheung Chi Keung	Hong Kong	47	Released	Kwok was kidnapped by the notorious gangster "Big Spender" Cheung Chi Keung^[45] and was released seven days later without police intervention. Following his arrest in Guangzhou in 1998, Cheung confessed that he had put Kwok in a wooden container blindfolded for four days and fed him regular meals of roast pork with rice, until the ransom of some HK$600 million was paid.^[46]
24 November 1997	Sabrina Aisenberg	Unknown	Hillsborough, Tampa, Florida, US	5 months	Unknown	Sabrina vanished from her crib without a trace. Her parents, Steve and Marlene Aisenberg, were the last to see her alive, when they placed her in her crib Sunday night. In the morning Sabrina and her blanket were gone. She is still missing.^[47]^[48]^[49]^[50]^[51]^[52]^[53]
15 December 1997	Delimar Vera Cuevas	Carolyn Correa	Frankford, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US	10 days	Rescued	Cuevas was a baby when she was thought to have been killed in a fire. Six years later, her mother discovered her at a birthday party. After DNA tests confirmed that the child was indeed her own, the kidnapper went on the run, leaving behind three more children.^[54]
2 March 1998	Natascha Kampusch	Wolfgang Přiklopil	Vienna, Austria	10	Escaped	Kampusch was abducted on her way to school and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper for more than eight years. She escaped aged 18 on 23 August 2006.
27 July 1998	Allyson Dalton	Unknown	Strasburg, Virginia, US	10 weeks	Unknown	Allyson Dalton is the daughter of Sylena Dalton, 20, who was found stabbed to death in the apartment she had shared with Allyson and her mother. When a friend was alerted to the scene, she found Sylena stabbed to death and Allyson missing. A witness said he saw a male putting a baby into the passenger side of a truck. The suspicion was on the father, Daniel Pompell. There had been previous disagreements over custody and support. The day Sylena was murdered, a paternity hearing was scheduled. Police have never named a suspect or a person of interest. In 2000 Sylena's mother filed a wrongful death suit against Pompell, but it was dropped for lack of evidence. Sylena's mother's search for Allyson has never stopped.^[55]
12 April 1999	Leszli Kálli	Guerrillas	Colombia		Released	Kálli was abducted by virtue of the hijacking of the plane she was on. She was held for slightly more than a year by Colombian leftist guerrillas with her father and the other passengers. She published a novel about her experiences.
3 May 1999	Hans van de Kimmenade	Four unknown men	Helmond, Netherlands	18	Released	A group of at least four armed (allegedly Arabian) men kidnapped van de Kimmenade, son of wealthy industrialists, from his estate. After the case received much media attention, Van de Kimmenade was dropped off at a waterschap within 48 hours. No reason was given for his release. After months of research, the case appeared unsolvable.
17 May 1999	Andria Nichole Brewer	Karl Roberts	Arkansas, US	12	Murdered	Roberts, 35, was convicted in May 2000 by a Polk County Circuit Court jury of capital murder in the rape and strangling of Brewer, his niece, on 17 May 1999.
7 July 1999	Rolandito Salas Jusino	Unknown	Toa Alta, Puerto Rico	4	Unknown	Jusino was playing, allegedly unsupervised, in a community park next to his house's backyard.^[56] He was never found.
12 October 1999	Pamela Butler	Keith Nelson	Kansas City, US	10	Murdered	Butler was rollerblading in front of her house when she was kidnapped by Nelson. He took her across the state line from Kansas into Grain Valley, Missouri, to a church. There he took her into a wooded area, where he raped and strangled Butler with speaker wire. Nelson was arrested two days later near the Kansas River, and Butler's body was recovered the following day. Nelson was found guilty and sentenced to death by lethal injection in a federal facility.

2000–2009[edit]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
1 July 2000	Sarah Payne	Roy Whiting	West Sussex, England	8	Murdered	Payne was kidnapped and murdered soon afterwards by Whiting. The subsequent investigation became a high-profile murder case in the United Kingdom. Following his conviction, Whiting was imprisoned for life and is currently being held in the maximum security Wakefield prison, West Yorkshire.
6 April 2001	Anne Sluti	Anthony Steven "Tony Zappa" Wright	Kearney, Nebraska, US	17	Released/rescued	Sluti was kidnapped from a mall parking lot in April 2001, taken out of state, and raped for six days before Wright surrendered to police.
1 February 2002	Danielle van Dam	David Westerfield	Sabre Springs, San Diego, California, US	7	Murdered	Van Dam was abducted from her bed the night of 1–2 February; her body was found three weeks later in a remote area. Westerfield, a neighbor, was convicted of kidnapping and first degree murder, and sentenced to death for the crime. He is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
23 February 2002	Íngrid Betancourt	Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia	Colombia	40	Rescued	Betancourt, a presidential candidate, was kidnapped and held captive until 2008.
5 June 2002	Elizabeth Smart	Brian David Mitchell	Salt Lake City, Utah, US	14	Rescued	Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom, and was found alive nine months later in a suburb of Salt Lake City on 12 March 2003.
15 July 2002	Samantha Runnion	Alejandro Avila	Stanton, California, US	5	Murdered	Runnion was kidnapped from the front yard of her home. Her body was found one day later in Cleveland National Forest. Avila is currently incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California.
22 July 2002	Erica Pratt	Edward Johnson and James Burns	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US	7	Escaped	Pratt was forced into a car from a street. She escaped by gnawing through duct tape used to keep her bound and by smashing a window.
12 August 2002	Arjan Erkel	Three gunmen	Makhachkala, Russia	32	Released	Erkel was a medical aid worker for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) when he was kidnapped. Twenty months later he was released after the Dutch government paid a ransom of €1,000,000.
22 August 2002	Michelle Knight	Ariel Castro	Cleveland, Ohio, US	21	Rescued	Knight was last seen when she left her cousin's house. Knight, along with Amanda Berry, Berry's child who was born in captivity, and Gina DeJesus, were found alive and in reasonable health within three miles of the site of their disappearances on 6 May 2013.
6 October 2002	Shawn Hornbeck	Michael J. Devlin	Richwoods, Missouri, US	11	Rescued	Hornbeck was kidnapped while riding his bicycle near his home. He was sexually assaulted and tortured by his kidnapper, Michael Devlin, eventually promising the man to not run away in exchange for Devlin keeping him alive. Hornbeck was given a large amount of freedom, and told neighbors he was being home-schooled. After four years, Devlin was losing sexual interest in him, and so kidnapped another boy, William "Ben" Ownby, with Hornbeck in the car to keep him quiet. The police investigated Devlin and spoke to Hornbeck, but the teenager gave his name as Shawn Wilcox and claimed to be only staying with Devlin while his father was on a business trip. The next day, the police spoke to Devlin again, telling him they were going to check Devlin's pick-up's tires against tracks found at the scene of Ownby's kidnapping. Devlin then admitted that he had both Hornbeck and Ben in his apartment, alive. When Shawn was asked his name again without Devlin in the room, he told the police he was Shawn Hornbeck.
11 November 2002	Samantha Nicole Burns	Unknown	Huntington, West Virginia, US	19	Unknown	Burns, a student of Marshall Community and Technical College's Physical Therapy Program, was abducted at the Marshall University Court Yard Apartments. She was last heard from by her mother at 9:45pm, and her car was discovered burning around the Cabell/Wayne County lines at 3:30am on 12 November 2002. She has not been seen or heard from since, she is presumed dead, and no remains have been recovered. South Carolina Death Row inmates Chadwick E. Fulks and Branden L. Basham claim responsibility for the disappearance of Burns. At that time they were escapees of another correctional facility. They have yet to provide enough credible details that lead to Burns' whereabouts.
21 April 2003	Amanda Berry	Ariel Castro	Cleveland, Ohio, US	16	Escaped	Berry was abducted one day before her 17th birthday. During captivity, she gave birth to a daughter. Just over 10 years later, on 6 May 2013, Berry escaped with her daughter, assisted by neighbors responding to her screams when Castro had absented himself after failing to secure all but an outer door of the house. This led to the rescue of two other captives (Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus) by authorities. The victims were all in reasonable health and within three miles of the site of their abductions.
7 December 2003	Daniel Morcombe	Brett Peter Cowan	Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia	13	Murdered	Morcombe was abducted while waiting to catch a bus under an overpass. Previously convicted pedophile Brett Peter Cowan was charged in August 2011 for Morcombe's abduction and murder before a search site was established in remote bushlands near the Glass House Mountains for his body. Skeletal remains were eventually found and DNA tests confirmed that the bones belonged to Morcombe.^[57] Cowan was sentenced to life imprisonment on 14 March 2014.^[58]
4 February 2004	Carlie Brucia	Joseph P. Smith	Sarasota, Florida, US	11	Murdered	Brucia was abducted and murdered after being taken from a car wash, which had been filmed by security cameras.
2 April 2004	Gina DeJesus	Ariel Castro	Cleveland, Ohio, US	14	Rescued	Just over nine years after DeJesus' abduction, on 6 May 2013, she was rescued along with Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Berry's child who had been born in captivity. They were in reasonable health and within three miles of the site of their disappearances.
9 July 2004	Leigh Matthews	Donovan Moodley	Morningside, Johannesburg	21	Murdered	The day after Matthews' 21st birthday, Moodly kidnapped her from the Bond University campus. After collecting the negotiated ransom, Moodly shot and killed Matthews in fear that releasing her might lead to his capture.
19 October 2004	Margaret Hassan	Unknown	Baghdad, Iraq	59	Murdered	Hassan was kidnapped and later killed on 8 November by terrorists. Her remains were never recovered.
2004	Wu Ruofu	Unknown	Beijing, China	42	Rescued	Wu Ruofu was kidnapped by a gang targeting wealthy businessmen. He was rescued after 23 hours in captivity, just before he was to be executed. Three of the abductors were sentenced to death a year later. A movie was released in 2015 based on the case, titled Saving Mr. Wu.^[59]
24 February 2005	Jessica Lunsford	John Couey	Homosassa, Florida, US	9	Murdered	Lunsford was abducted from her home in the early morning. Believed held captive over the weekend, she was raped and later murdered by 46-year-old Couey, who lived nearby. The media covered the investigation and trial of her killer extensively. On 24 August 2007, a judge in Inverness, Florida sentenced Couey, a convicted sex offender, to death for the kidnapping, sexual battering, and first-degree murder of Lunsford.
18 May 2005	Rahul Raju	Unknown	Alappuzha, Kerala, India	7	Unknown	The local police and the CBI have not found any tangible evidence for Raju's whereabouts.
12 September 2005	Claudia Melchers	Unknown	Amsterdam, Netherlands	36	Released	A group of armed men broke into Melchers' house, tying up her husband and children before taking her with them. The motive is unknown, although it is suspected that it was done to demand a large ransom, as her father Hans Melchers is one of the richest citizens of the Netherlands.
5 September 2005	Taylor Behl	Benjamin Fawley	Richmond, Virginia, US	17	Murdered	Behl, a Virginia Commonwealth University freshman, was found dead on 5 October 2005, in Mathews County, Virginia, after having gone missing a month earlier.
19 October 2005	Cristina Rios Valladares	Florence Cassez	Mexico		Released	Valladares was kidnapped with her two children.^[60] They were freed after 52 days. Cassez was convicted and given a 61-year sentence for the abduction.^{[citation needed]}
8 January 2007	William "Ben" Benjamin Ownby	Michael J. Devlin	St. Louis, Missouri, US	13	Rescued	Ownby was getting off the school bus when he was forced into Michael Devlin's pickup truck. Also in the truck was 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, who had been kidnapped by Devlin four years earlier and had been living as his son ever since. The boys lived in Devlin's apartment for a few days, playing computer games and watching TV. A friend of Ownby's gave the police a description of Devlin's vehicle, and his boss recognized it, remembering that Devlin was home sick that day. The man called the police, who went to Devlin's apartment and met Hornbeck, who gave his last name as Wilcox. The officers left, but came back the next day. That time, Devlin admitted to having Ownby.
3 May 2007	Madeleine McCann	Unknown	Praia da Luz, Portugal	3	Unknown	McCann, a British girl, disappeared aged almost 4 from her family's holiday apartment. Her parents were out eating at a bar with friends, having left McCann and her two younger siblings alone in the apartment. She has yet to be found.
2 December 2007	Sergio Gomez	Unknown	Michoacán, Mexico	34	Murdered	Gomez was a Mexican singer who was the founder and lead vocalist of the group K-Paz de la Sierra. He was kidnapped on 2 December 2007 and murdered the next day.
13 January 2008	Mari Luz Cortes	Santiago del Valle	Huelva, Spain	5	Murdered	Cortes left her home in the El Torrejón area of Huelva for a short trip to the local sweets kiosk, where she disappeared. She was found dead.
19 February 2008	Shannon Matthews	Michael Donovan and Karen Matthews	Dewsbury, England	9	Rescued	Matthews was abducted and held captive for 24 days by Donovan, the uncle of her mother, Karen Matthews', boyfriend. After her rescue by police it was found that Karen had helped plot the kidnapping in an attempt to gain reward money.
9 February 2009	Haleigh Cummings	Unknown	Satsuma, Florida, US	5	Unknown	Cummings was last seen sleeping in her family's trailer. She was discovered missing. The rear door to the trailer was ajar, and the screen door had been propped open with a cinderblock. The case remains unsolved.
27 March 2009	Sandra Cantu	Melissa Huckaby	Tracy, California, US	8	Murdered	Several days after Cantu went missing on 6 April, a suitcase was discovered in a pond containing her body. On 10 April 2009, police arrested 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby and charged her with Cantu's kidnapping, rape, and murder.
24 May 2009	Nevaeh Buchanan	Unknown	Monroe, Michigan, US	5	Murdered	Buchanan was discovered missing from the parking lot of the Charlotte Arms apartment complex. A fishermen discovered her body along the banks of the River Raisin in Raisinville Township on 4 June 2009.
31 December 2009	Masego Kgomo	Brian Mangwale	Soshanguve, South Africa	10	Murdered	Masego was kidnapped for a Muti killing by Brian Mangwala. It is believed that she may have been gang raped before being taken to the sangoma.^[61]

2010 and later[edit]

Date	Victim	Abductor	Location	Age of victim	Outcome	Notes
30 January 2010	Naga Vaishnavi	Unknown	Andhra Pradesh, India	10	Murdered	Vaishnavi was murdered three days after her abduction.
4 June 2010	Kyron Horman	Unknown	Portland, Oregon, US	7	Unknown	Horman disappeared when he did not return home from Skyline Elementary School. Local and state police along with the FBI conducted an exhaustive search for the boy and launched a criminal investigation, but have not uncovered any significant information regarding his whereabouts.
8 June 2010	Khan Kakama	Gordon Tumusiime	Bugolobi, Kampala, Uganda	1	Murdered	Kakama was handed to the kidnappers by Molly Nabasa, his nanny. His parents, Sven and Naome Karekaho, work(ed) for the Uganda Revenue Authority and National Environmental Management Authority, respectively.
12 November 2010	Anni Dewani, Shrien Dewani	Zola Robert Tongo, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, Xolile Mngeni	Gugulethu, Cape Town, South Africa	28, 31	Murdered, released	During a night trip through the Township of Gugulethu, the taxi was hijacked. Husband Shrien was dropped of in neighboring township of Khayelitsha while Anni was kept. The vehicle was found the next day with Anni's beaten and bruised body in the back seat.^[62] Shrien was suspected as having masterminded the kidnapping and murder of his wife.^[63]
25 November 2010 (Thanksgiving Day)	Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner Skelton	John Skelton	Morenci, Michigan	5 - 9	Unknown	The three boys' mother had custody of them, but they were at their father's house for Thanksgiving the last time they were seen. Their father was convicted of kidnapping them, and still claims that they are alive, though police believe them to be dead.
13 April 2011	Holly Bobo	Arrests have been made, no convictions	Darden, Tennessee, US	20	Murdered	Bobo was witnessed by her brother walking into the woods outside their family home with a man wearing camouflage. Three years later, in 2014, four men were arrested for varying degrees of involvement in the kidnapping, and are awaiting trial. A woman has alleged that she saw a video of Holly Bobo tied up and crying, although this video has not been located. Bobo's body was found in September 2014.^[64]
12 May 2011	Timmothy James Pitzen^[65]	Amy Fry-Pitzen	Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, US	6	Unknown	Timmothy was taken out of school by his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, but she did not bring him home. His father, James Pitzen, reported both of them missing that same day. Amy called some family members to tell them she was all right, with Timmothy saying he was hungry in the background. Her body was found, having killed herself, on 14 May. She left a note behind stating that Timothy was safe and would never be found.^[66] Timmothy was not with her the last time she was seen alive, and his whereabouts are still unknown.
11 July 2011	Leiby Kletzky	Levi Aro	New York City, US	8	Murdered	Kletzky was kidnapped on his way home from day camp in his Hasidic Jewish neighborhood.^[when?] The alleged killer was apprehended 32 hours later; he confessed to killing the boy and dismembering his body, but entered a plea of not guilty in court.
September 2011	Disappearance of Sarah Dominique Broady and Jaiyana Hodges-Broady	Unknown	Killeen, Texas, US	3 months	Rescued	The mother and daughter were allegedly kidnapped by the child's father during an unscheduled visitation. Details of the case have been withheld by the court.
3 October 2011	Lisa Irwin	Unknown	Kansas City, Missouri, US	10 months	Unknown	Irwin disappeared from her home in the early hours of the morning. Investigators to this day have never given any indication that she was kidnapped by an outside intruder.
21 April 2012	Isabel Celis	Unknown	Tucson, Arizona, US	6	Murdered	Celis was reported missing by her father around 8 am when she was not in her room. A bedroom window had been opened with the screen removed. On March 31, 2017, her remains were found.^{[citation needed]}
1 October 2012	April Jones	Mark Bridger	Machynlleth, Wales	5	Murdered	Jones was lured into a van by Bridger. Bridger killed her soon afterwards, but only small fragments of her body have been found.
29 January 2013	Ethan Gilman	Jimmy Lee Dykes	Midland City, Alabama, US	5	Rescued	Dykes, a 65-year-old Vietnam War-era veteran, boarded a Dale County school bus, killed the driver, and took Gilman hostage. On the afternoon of 4 February, law enforcement agents entered the bunker where Dykes was keeping Gilman, killed Dykes, and rescued Gilman.
12 June 2014	Naphtali Frankel, Gilad Shar, Ayal Yiphrach	Hamas militants suspected	Gush Etzion, West Bank	Naphtali-16, Gilad-16, Ayal-19	Murdered
20 June 2016	Alayna Ertl	Zachary Todd Anderson	Watkins, Minnesota, US	5	Murdered	Ertl was abducted and her body was located nine hours later in a wilderness park.
2 June 2017	Stanislav Aseyev	So-called Donetsk People's Republic			Still held in custody. Started a hunger strike in July 2018.	On June 2, 2017 the freelance journalist Stanislav Aseyev was abducted. Firstly the de facto DNR government denied knowing his whereabouts but on July 16, an agent of the DNR's "Ministry of State Security" confirmed that Aseyev was in their custody and that he is suspected of "espionage". Independent media is not allowed to report from the "DNR"-controlled territory.^[67]
9 June 2017	Yingying Zhang	Brendt Christensen suspected	Urbana, Illinois, US	26	Unknown (presumed dead)	On June 9, 2017, Zhang was running late to an appointment to sign a lease. While waiting at a bus stop, Christensen approached her in his Saturn Astra. Zhang got into his car, and was never heard from again. Authorities believe that she is no longer alive.

Modern kidnappings of celebrities or their relatives[edit]

Kidnappers interested in getting a large ransom or a political effect often target celebrities or their relatives. Here are some of the people affected by these crimes:

Cindy Birdsong: A member of the Motown supergroup The Supremes. Birdsong was kidnapped in December 1969, aged 30, at knife-point from her Hollywood apartment and escaped two hours later by jumping from the car at a freeway exit. Charles Collier, the handyman at Birdsong's apartment, was later convicted of the kidnapping.
Jorge and Juan Born (1974), scions of the Bunge y Born business, were kidnapped in September by the Montoneros and only released after the payment of a $60 million ransom.
Riddick Bowe (boxer): Former world heavyweight champion kidnapped his estranged wife, Judy, and their five children from North Carolina in February 1998, hoping to reconcile his marriage. Police captured Bowe in South Hill, Virginia, freeing his family.
Jorge Campos (soccer player): In 1999, his father was kidnapped and later found alive in Acapulco, Mexico.
Rajkumar (born Singanalluru Puttaswamayya Muthuraju) an actor and singer in Kannada film industry, was kidnapped from the actor's house at Gajanur in Tamil Nadu on 30 July 2000, along with his son-in-law Govindaraju and two others. He was released unharmed on 15 November 2000, after 108 days of captivity.
Françoise Claustre: French archaeologist who was kidnapped in Chad by guerillas led by Hissène Habré. Her husband, Pierre, was the head of the French foreign aid mission in Chad and he was also taken hostage when he tried to secure her release.
Baron Édouard-Jean Empain: Industrialist who was kidnapped for ransom. His captors cut off one of his fingers in order to bring proof that they held him. He was later released.
John Paul Getty III, kidnapped in Italy in 1973. His grandfather, the then world's richest man, American multi-billionaire oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty, refused to pay his $3 million ransom until one of the boy's ears was cut off and sent to a newspaper.
Georgiy Gongadze: Prominent Ukrainian journalist kidnapped and later found beheaded in 2000. His disappearance has triggered a major political and diplomatic scandal also involving United States and other Western countries. No details of the crime have been revealed yet.
William Randolph Hearst: His granddaughter Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the SLA in 1974. Her father gave $6 million in food to the poor of the Bay Area as ransom, but she was not released. She became part of her captor's group and was later convicted on bank robbery charges.
Freddy Heineken (1983): Chairman of the board of directors and CEO of the brewing company Heineken International and his driver Ab Doderer, were kidnapped between 9 and 30 November 1983 in Amsterdam.
Jennifer Hudson: Her nephew was kidnapped after her mother and brother were shot to death. He was later found dead.
Julio Iglesias: His father was kidnapped in 1985 but was found alive and healthy.
David Letterman: In 2005, FBI agents and Montana authorities foiled a kidnapping of Letterman's son from his Choteau, Montana home.
Charles Lindbergh: The aviator's two-year-old son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped in 1932 and was killed. Bruno Hauptmann was arrested and executed for the crime, but concerns remain regarding Hauptmann's guilt and the fairness of the trial (see Lindbergh kidnapping).
Adi Koila Mara Nailatikau: First daughter of Fiji and senator, was kidnapped during a coup against her father. Kidnappers threatened to kill her, but she survived.
Yoko Ono: Her second husband Anthony Cox abducted their daughter Kyoko Chan Cox in 1971. Ono and her daughter were finally reunited in 1998, Cox remains in hiding.
Carlos Pesquera: Former candidate for governor of Puerto Rico and president of the PNP party, held captive for a few hours in July 2004 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico; released after paying captors 1,000 U.S. dollars.
Veruska Ramirez, former Miss Venezuela, kidnapped in 2003 and released three hours later after signing fifteen autographs for her captors.
Ruben Omar Romano, Argentine soccer coach, was kidnapped in Mexico on 19 July 2005 and rescued two months later.
Cesar Rosas: Member of Los Lobos whose wife, Sandra, was kidnapped on 23 October 1999 and later found dead. Gabriel Gómez was accused and sentenced for her kidnapping and murder.
Hanns-Martin Schleyer: German manager and employer representative. He was kidnapped in Cologne in 1977. He was found dead in Mulhouse, France.
Daryush Shokof: The artist-filmmaker was kidnapped after he screened his films Iran Zendan and Hitler's Grave that portrayed the horrible situations of Iranian Political Prisoners in Iran and under the Islamic republic Regime of Iran in Berlin, Germany. He said he was held by Arabic speaking men for 12 days and was released not to publicize the films.He was thrown into the Rhine river in Cologne, Germany.The German Police debates the validity of the incident up to this date.
Frank Sinatra, Jr. (1963), son of Frank Sinatra, was kidnapped by Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler and released after a ransom of $240,000 was paid a few days later. Most of the ransom money was recovered.
Karl von Spreti: West-Germany's ambassador to Guatemala, was kidnapped in 1970 in Guatemala City and later murdered.
Johnny Tapia: The world boxing champion saw his mother raped and kidnapped when he was 8 years old. He was hiding when he witnessed the assault. His mother's body was found on a road days later.
Thalía: The Mexican diva's sisters, Ernestina Sodi and actress Laura Zapata, were kidnapped but later both released alive.
Nikoloz Tskitishvili: The basketball player, a star in his home country (Georgia), had strangers call to his house and threaten to kidnap his brother and mother after it became known he signed a million-dollar contract with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. As a consequence, he moved all his family to Denver.
Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, son of the Hong Kong tycoon, Li Ka Shing: Kidnapped by Cheung Chi Keung, AKA "Big Spender". He was released after the world record payment of a HK$1,000,000,000 (US$134,000,000) ransom. Cheung was later captured and executed in Guangzhou in 2000.
Jakub Fiszman, a wealthy German businessman, was kidnapped on October 1, 1996. The abductors demanded four million Deutsche Mark. Rainer and Sven Körppen, along with three others were arrested on October 16. The body of Fiszman was found on October 19 in the Taunus mountains.

Faked kidnappings[edit]

Fairlie Arrow (1991), an Australian singer, went missing for two days and was found tied up in a road in Queensland. She claimed she had been abducted by a fan but, two weeks later, admitted making up the story to boost her flagging career.^[68]^[69]^[70]
Jules Croiset, Dutch actor who faked being kidnapped by neo-Nazis.^[why?]^[71]
Joanna Grenside (1992), an aerobics teacher from Harpenden, England, who staged her disappearance to avoid Christmas.^{[clarification needed]}^[70]
Dar Heatherington, Alberta city councillor who claimed to have been abducted in Montana.
Jennifer Wilbanks: American woman who alleged that she was kidnapped as an excuse for her running away from her own wedding in late April 2005, in the Runaway bride case.

Suspected kidnappings[edit]

Haleigh Cummings; the child, according to news reports from CNN and other major television news sources, was being watched by the girlfriend, later wife, of her father, Ronald Cummings, when she disappeared from her mobile home in Satsuma, Florida in February 2009. Two persons of interest in the still unsolved kidnapping were implicated in a drug sting in January 2010, renewing interest in the case.^[72]
Jimmy Hoffa, disappeared and declared legally dead. Several rumors and theories, including an alleged kidnapping, surfaced in later years.
Helen Brach millionaire owner of a candy company; an informant claimed she was kidnapped after leaving the Mayo Clinic, then murdered; her remains have never been located.^[73]
Cédrika Provencher 10-year-old girl from Trois-Rivières, Canada went missing on July 31, 2007. Her remains were discovered on December 11, 2015.^[74]
Dru Sjodin, American college student seems to have been abducted on 22 November 2003, and was found dead on 17 April 2004.^[75]
Hassani Campbell; 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy went missing in Oakland, California on 10 August 2009. Hassani's foster father, Louis Ross, said he left Hassani waiting at the back of the shoe store where Hassani's aunt, Jennifer Campbell, worked while he went around to the front of the store with Hassani's younger sister.^[76]
Aimee Semple McPherson, evangelist who maintained she was kidnapped and held for ransom from 18 May through 23 June 1926 until she escaped. A grand jury inquiry instead charged her with fabricating it. Charges against McPherson were dropped for lack of evidence. No indictments against her described kidnappers were pursued.^[77]^[78]^[79]^[80]^[81]^[82]

Kidnapping in lieu of extradition[edit]

See main article: Extradition and abduction

Humberto Álvarez Machaín, from Mexico to the United States by locals hired by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 1990.
Jabez Balfour, from Argentina to the United Kingdom in 1895.
Ronnie Biggs, from Brazil to the United Kingdom by independent bounty hunters in 1981.
Adolf Eichmann, from Argentina to Israel in 1960.
Mir Aimal Kasi, from Pakistan to the United States in 1997.
Andrew Luster, from Mexico to the United States by Duane Chapman ("Dog the Bounty Hunter") in 2003.
Martin Mubanga, from Zambia to Guantanamo Bay by the United States in 2002.
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, from Italy to Egypt by the CIA in 2005.
Morton Sobell, from Mexico to the United States in 1950.
Mordechai Vanunu, from Italy to Israel in 1986.

Mass kidnappings[edit]

1976 Chowchilla kidnapping: 26 children on a school bus and the bus driver were held in a buried moving van, in a quarry.
2010 Kurram agency mass kidnapping: 60 people were taken from the Kurram Tribunial Agency in Pakistan by militants dressed as police officiers.
2014 Chibok kidnapping: More than 200 schoolgirls were taken from their school during an exam. The Boko Haram terrorist group is suspected to have perpetrated the attack.^[83]