The discovery of three women in a Cleveland home who all had gone missing separately about a decade ago brings to mind cases of abductions elsewhere. A list of some prominent cases:
JAYCEE DUGARD
Dugard was abducted in June 1991 on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California. Then 11, she was held for 18 years by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. She was raped repeatedly by Garrido and gave birth to two daughters. Dugard was freed in 2009 after she and her two children appeared in public with him and a police interrogation revealed her identity. Convicted of kidnapping and rape, Garrido was sentenced to 431 years in prison. His wife received a sentence of 36 years to life.
ELISABETH FRITZL
Fritzl disappeared from her town of Amstetten, Austria, in 1984 at age 18. In 2008, she re-emerged 24 years later from the dungeon-like basement chamber where her father, Josef, had kept her captive. He raped her thousands of times. She bore him seven children, one of which died in captivity after Josef Fritzl refused to allow medical treatment. Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a prison psychiatric ward in March 2009. Elisabeth Fritzl and her children were given new identities.
SHAWN HORNBECK
In October 2002, Hornbeck — then 11 — was kidnapped while riding his bike to a friend’s house in Washington County, Missouri. In January 2007, authorities found Hornbeck and another kidnapped boy, Ben Ownby, in the suburban St. Louis apartment of Michael Devlin. Ownby, 13, had been abducted four days earlier. Devlin was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and abusing the boys.
NATASCHA KAMPUSCH
Kampusch was kidnapped in 1998 off the street in Vienna at age 10. She managed to escape in 2006 but only after spending eight years as a captive, mostly in a tiny basement enclosure. She was abused by her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, who committed suicide soon after Kampusch freed herself.
ELIZABETH SMART
At age 14, Smart was snatched from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in June 2002 by Brian David Mitchell, who did odd jobs for the family. Tormented over nine months by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, Smart was freed after she was recognized in March 2003 while in public with both of them. He is serving a life sentence and Barzee is serving 16 years in prison.
JULIE LEJEUNE, MELISSA RUSSO, AN MARCHAL, EEFJE LAMRECKS, SABINE DARDENNE, LAETITIA DELHEZ
Aged between 8 and 19 when snatched between mid-1995 and August 1996, the six victims were abducted, tortured and abused by Belgian Marc Dutroux. Only Dardenne, 12, and Delhez, 14, escaped alive after being found near the southern Belgian town of Charleroi a few days after Dutroux’s arrest in August 1996. He is serving a life sentence. His wife, Michelle Martin, is now in a convent after serving 16 years of a 30-year prison term.
STEVEN STAYNER
The 7-year-old boy was kidnapped in 1972 while walking home from school in Merced, California. After Stayner escaped captivity in 1980, Kenneth Eugene Parnell was convicted of kidnapping him and a second boy, 5-year-old Timmy White, and sentenced to seven years in prison. Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1989 at age 24.