List of kidnappings

This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (January 2020)

Here is a list of kidnappings.

Before 1900[]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
880	Solange	The son of a nobleman	France	unknown	Murdered	Frankish shepherdess who, according to legend, was abducted by the son of the count of Poitiers due to her beauty and popularity. Resisting his forceful abduction, her kidnapper grew enraged and then decapitated her. Myths claim that her severed head invoked the Holy Name of Jesus three times, before the body picked it up and walked towards a church in present-day Sainte-Solange, where it dropped dead. Solange has been locally canonized as a Saint to whom numerous miracles have been attributed.[1][2]
1628	Olivier Le Jeune	David Kirke	New France	7	Released	Malagasy boy who was the first slave to New France, where he was sold to a French clerk in Quebec. After the settlement was returned to the French in 1632, Le Jeune was handed to a Jesuit priest who baptisized him and later declared him a free 'domestic servant'.[3]
26 May 1665	Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester	John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester	England	14	Stayed with captor	English heiress who refused to marry Wilmot, who then attempted to abduct her. She escaped, but later forgave and married him.[4]
1754	The Johnson family	French and Abenaki	Province of New Hampshire	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. During the French and Indian War, and before that, French and British forces, with Native American allies, traded raids on each other's territory. There was a strong trade and system of families ransoming their members to get them back. A French-Abenaki party raided this area, taking as war captives Captain James Johnson and his wife Susannah Willard Johnson, Willard Johnson's 14-year-old sister, Miriam Willard, and the three Johnson children: 6-year-old Sylvanus, 4-year-old Susanna, and 2-year-old Mary ("Polly"). Willard Johnson was pregnant with a fourth child, a daughter, Elizabeth, who was born while she was held in captivity. The family was originally kept in an Abenaki village, but most were ransomed or sold to the French and moved to Montreal after a few months; Sylvanus was adopted by an Abenaki family, as the tribe customarily adopted young war captives to assimilate them into the tribe. The French gave James two months to pay his family's ransom, but he did not return to Montreal in time. Willard Johnson and her three daughters were imprisoned, as was James when he reached the city. Willard Johnson gave birth in prison to a fifth child, her second son and second child to be born in captivity, but he died soon after birth. After a year in prison, French officials sent Willard Johnson, Polly, Elizabeth, and Miriam, who was not imprisoned with the three of them, to England so they could be used in a formal prisoner exchange. Susanna was left in the care of three French women. James was killed in battle before seeing his family again. When Sylvanus was 11 years old, his surviving family arranged for his ransom and he was returned to them by the Abenaki. He no longer could speak English. When the French surrendered Montreal to the British, they learned about Susanna and arranged for her return to her family at age 10. Willard Johnson eventually remarried. She wrote a book, A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, about these events. Captivity narratives are recognized as a literary genre.
1803	Rachel Fanny Antonina Lee	The Gordon brothers	London, England	30s–40s	Circumstances disputed	Lee, the illegitimate child of Sir Francis Dashwood, claimed to have been kidnapped by the two brothers, but it's unclear whether this was truthful or not. Both were acquitted, but Lee continued to write about her beliefs until her death.[5]
23 June 1858	Edgardo Mortara	Police, ordered by Pope Pius IX	Bologna, Papal States	6	Stayed with abductors	Mortara, a Jewish child, was taken from his family by Pope Pius IX because a Catholic 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 was ordained as an Augustinian priest, taking the name Pius.
16 October 1859	Lewis Washington	John Cook and his men	Harpers Ferry, West Virginia	47	Rescued	American planter and slaveowner who was held hostage by John Cook, a leader during the Raid on Harpers Ferry, who was interested in several relics Washington had inherited. He was later rescued, and testified at the latter trial.[6]
1 July 1874	Charley Ross	Possibly Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas	Germantown, Pennsylvania, US	4	Unknown	Charley Ross was the first American known to be kidnapped for private 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. Walter was quickly found but did not know where Charley was. The primary suspects, Mosher and Douglas, were killed before they could be proved to be the kidnappers, and Charley was never found.
24 August 1867	Fanny Adams	Frederick Baker	Alton, England	8	Murdered	Abducted, murdered and then dismembered in a hop garden near her home. Her remains were found later that same day, and the killing caused a great outcry in the United Kingdom. The phrase "Sweet Fanny Adams" originated from this case.[7]

1900–1949[]

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 in Tangier. US Secretary of State John Hay declared, "This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The two men were released alive when ransom demands were paid.
1909	George Cove	Unknown	The Bronx, New York, U.S.	unknown	Released	Canadian inventor who was kidnapped by unknown assailants, who offered him $25,000 in exchange for him to stop promoting his devices. He refused and was later released without harm. Cove accused a former investor of orchestrating the kidnapping, but nothing came out of it and his business soon flunked.[8]
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 nearby 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, suspected Roma (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 disappeared at age 4 near Swayze Lake. After an eight-month nationwide search, investigators found a child, claimed by Dunbar's parents as their son, in the household of William Cantwell Walters of Mississippi. He 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, known as Bruce. The boy's mother, Julia Anderson, affirmed Walters' account. In 2004, further investigation by "Dunbar's" granddaughter led to conclusive DNA proof that the child in Walters' custody was not the Dunbars' son. Walters had been wrongfully convicted for taking care of Charles Bruce Anderson.
21 July 1915	Francesco Rismondo	Austrian soldiers	Gorizia, Italy	30	Killed	Italian irredentist and soldier who was captured after being wounded during a battle on Monte San Michele. While it is unclear how he died, it is believed that Rismondo's death occurred circa August 10.[9]
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 receiving a small ransom, Hickman was arrested and tried. He was convicted and sentenced to death. On 19 October 1928, he was executed for his crime.
1 March 1932	Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.	Richard Hauptmann	East Amwell Township, New Jersey, US	1	Murdered	Charles was the son of American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. On 1 March, the 20-month-old child was taken from his crib at home in what was called "the crime of the century". Ransom negotiations were unsuccessful, and his remains were found on 12 May. Hauptmann was found and arrested on September 1934, and 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 made kidnapping a federal crime if the victim was taken across state lines, enabling investigation and other actions by federal law enforcement.
26 January 1930	Alexander Kutepov	Joint State Political Directorate agents	Paris, France	47	Died during apprehension	Russian anti-communist and leader of the Russian All-Military Union during the Russian Civil War, who suffered from a heart attack when he was abducted by OGPU agents, dying on the spot.[10]
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.
July 1930	Väinö Hakkila	Lapua Movement members	Finland	48	Released	Finnish SDP politician and speaker for Parliament who was kidnapped and beaten by Lapua Movement members. He survived the assault, and later resumed his career.[11]
5 July 1930	Eino Pekkala	Lapua Movement members	Ostrobothnia, Finland	43	Released	Finnish socialist politician who, together with Jalmari Rötkö, was kidnapped by fascist Lapua Movement members while they were attending the Constitutional Law Committee. Both were handed over to authorities the next day, and Pekkala was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for treason.[12]
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 F. 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, convicted at trial, 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. His body was later found. His two alleged kidnappers were arrested and, before trial, lynched by a mob.
25 April 1934	June Robles	Unknown	Tucson, Arizona, US	6	Released	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 disappeared while walking home from school. After media coverage, her parents received multiple ransom notes, but the police were unable to determine their veracity. The child's remains were found on 13 November 1934, buried under a flower bed at the corner of the Davidson County Tuberculosis Hospital. Her killer is unknown.[13][14][15][16][17]
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. He was released.
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.
27 December 1936	Lojze Bratuž	Italian fascists	Gorizia, Italy	35	Murdered	Slovene choirmaster and composer who was kidnapped by Italian Fascists and forced to drink a fatal mixture of castor oil, gasoline and motor oil. He was unable to recover, and died in a hospital half a month later.
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. He was tortured during interrogation and executed by gunshot nineteen months later, in 1939.
27 September 1943	Norma Cossetto	Yugoslav communists	Vižinada, Croatia	23	Murdered	Istrian Italian student and alleged Fascist sympathizer who was detained by Yugoslav communists, after allegedly refusing to join the resistance. Over the next few days, while the German forces were invading the area, Cossetto was repeatedly raped and tortured by her captors, before they finally threw her and two other women in a foiba on October 4 to 5.[18]
April 1945	Boris Popper	Soviet officers	Svir, Russia	41	Released	Russian-born Finnish white émigré who protested the Soviet government. He was extradited to the USSR in April 1945, receiving a 10-year sentence for his anti-government activities. He was later released and allowed to return to Finland.[19][20]
19 December 1945	Oto Iskandar di Nata	"The Black Troop"	Tangerang, Indonesia	48	Murdered	Indonesian politician who was supposedly killed on a beach by a group identifying themselves as 'The Black Troop'. As his body was then dumped into the sea, it was never located.[21]
15 May 1948	June Anne Devaney	Peter Griffiths	Blackburn, England	3	Murdered	Inpatient at Queen's Park Hospital who was abducted, raped and killed by a man who had been to the hospital. The case is considered a milestone in British forensics, being the first case to be solved by mass fingerprinting.[22]

1950–1979[]

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's armistice 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	Murdered	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.[23] 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.[23] LaMarca was executed via electric chair on 7 August 1958.
2 September 1957	Judge Edward Aaron	Ku Klux Klan members	Birmingham, Alabama, US	34	Rescued	African-American handyman who was abducted, beaten and tortured by seven KKK members who left him for dead. Aaron was rescued the same day, and several of his attackers convicted later on. His case inspired the 1988 film Mississippi Burning.[24]
23 February 1958	Juan Manuel Fangio	Rebels involved in the Cuban Revolution	Havana, Cuba	46	Released	Five-time Argentine Formula One champion Fangio was kidnapped by rebels involved in the Cuban Revolution, which had been planned by one of Fidel Castro's right-hand men Faustino Perez, from a hotel in Havana, the night before the non-championship Cuban Grand Prix. The abductors had also planned to kidnap fellow driver Stirling Moss but was convinced by Fangio not to kidnap him. Fangio was taken to three separate houses and was offered various amnesties and even a radio for him to listen to the race going on. On midnight after the race, Fangio was dropped off at the Argentinian ambassador's home.[25][26]
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.[27]
7 July 1960	Graeme Thorne	Stephen Leslie Bradley	New South Wales, Australia	8	Murdered	Graeme's parents, Bazil 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.
22 October 1962	Carol Ann Dougherty	Unknown	Bristol, Pennsylvania, US	9	Murdered	Carol Dougherty was abducted by an unknown assailant on her way to the library from home. She was later found inside St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church, which she herself had frequented before, having been raped and strangled. Although there have been several suspects and leads on the perpetrator in the intervening years, the crime remains unsolved.[28]
27 April 1964[29]	Paul Joseph Fronczak	Unknown	Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, US	1 day	Found	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.[30][31] On 18 December 2019 it was announced that the real Paul Joseph Fronczak has been identified as a 55-year-old man who wishes to not be publicly identified.[32]
26 December 1965	Franca Viola	Filippo Melodia and associates	Sicily, Italy	17	Released	Italian woman who was kidnapped by mafioso Filippo Melodia, to whom she was previously engaged by force. She was held captive by him and his associates, with him raping her on multiple occasions. Even after her release, Viola was ostracized as she had refused to marry him in a "rehabilitating marriage", with the case serving as a stepping point for changes in law regarding bridal kidnappings.[33]
26 January 1966	The Beaumont Children	Unknown	Glenelg, South Australia	9, 7, 4	Unknown	The Beaumont children were three siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia on Australia Day 1966 in a suspected abduction and murder.[34] The regular and widespread attention given to the case, its significance in Australian criminal history, and the fact that the mystery of their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being continually revisited by the media.
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.[35][36]
27 September 1966	Allen Redston	Unknown	Curtin, Australia	6	Murdered	Schoolboy who disappeared while going toward a friend's house, where they planned to spend a day at Curtin Tip. Redston's body was found on the next day, wrapped in a blanket, near the location. He had been bound and strangled, but nobody was ever arrested in his murder.[37]
23 August 1968	Roy Tutill	Brian Field	Surrey, United Kingdom	14	Murdered	14-year-old Roy Tutill was abducted while hitchhiking in Surrey in 1968 and found raped and strangled three days later. The case was unsolved until 2001 (making it the oldest solved cold case in British history), when convicted sex offender Brian Field pleaded guilty based on DNA evidence. According to Field, he had drunkenly started touching Tutill's leg, at which point Tutill resisted and he proceeded to rape him before panicking and strangling him to death.
17 December 1968	Barbara Jane Mackle	Gary Stephen Krist and Ruth Eisemann-Schier	Decatur, Georgia, US	20	Rescued	Mackle was kidnapped and buried in a reinforced box with food, water, and air. She was rescued a few days later. She wrote a book about her experience that was later made into two TV movies.
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, even though 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	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.
13 September 1970	Monica Schiller	Terrance Haley, Raymond Gunning and Andrew Brooks	Murbko, South Australia	21	Rescued	Three "trustees" at the Cadell Training Centre absconded from a work release detail, entered the Schiller farm, and tied up Monica's family and boyfriend. After taking food, water, guns and ammunition, they left with the 21-year-old. The escapees first drove to the Adelaide suburb of Semaphore, then took another stolen vehicle with the intention to going to Darwin via the Birdsville Track. Police chartered a light plane and arrived at Birdsville before the kidnappers. Setting up a roadblock south of the town, police were able to stop the vehicle. After firing a number of shots at the abductors, they were captured and arrested. Monica was found alive in the vehicle but traumatised by the events of the 26 hour ordeal.[38]
17 September 1970	Kelly Lynn Albright	Unknown	Hutchinson, Kansas, US	12	Murdered	Kelly Albright had been sleeping in her bed with her two siblings in the home of her mother and stepfather, Roberta and Richard LeShure, when she woke her brother upon leaving the bedroom, after which she vanished from the home. She was found in a field three days later, having been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times. Little additional evidence was recovered outside of a pillow slip and her pajamas. The prime suspect in the case died before he could be questioned thoroughly, and the case remains unsolved. The crime served as the basis for a mystery novel, ‘’Facing September’’, by Sara Jenlink.[39]
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.
10 September 1971	Lynn Eusan	Unknown	Houston, Texas, U.S.	22	Murdered	African-American University of Houston student and activist who became the first black Homecoming queen in the Southern United States. She was last seen alive waiting for a bus stop, and was later found deceased in a stranger's car. The man, Leo Jackson, Jr., claimed that she had stabbed herself. He was charged, but later acquitted of her murder, and Eusan's case remains unsolved.[40]
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.
28 December 1972	Pinhas Lavie	Black September Organization militants	Bangkok, Thailand	37	Released	Israeli diplomat who served as the ambassador to Swaziland and the Dominican Republic who was abducted by Palestinian militants during the Israeli Bangkok Embassy hostage crisis. After 19 hours, Lavie and the other hostages were released from captivity in Egypt.[41]
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 never returned. Her bike was 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.[42][43][44]
8 August 1973	Kim Dae-jung	Members of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA)	Tokyo, Japan	49	Released	After attending a meeting with the leader of the Democratic Unification Party in the Grand Hotel Palace in Tokyo, the future president was abducted by a group of unidentified men as he walked out of the room. He was taken into another room where he was drugged unconscious. The kidnappers intended to throw Kim into the sea and drown him while boarding a boat from Osaka to Seoul, but this was abandoned when the Japanese Navy made pursuit of the kidnappers' boat. Kim was released back in Seoul five days after the kidnapping.[45]
October 1973	Bobi Sourander	Chilean Armed Forces	Santiago, Chile	45	Released	Finnish-Swedish journalist for Dagens Nyheter who was imprisoned for two weeks after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. He was later released without incident, but subsequently expelled from the country.[46]
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 abductor, later killed	Suzanne Sevakis, going by the name of Tonya Hughes, was killed in an apparent hit-and-run in 1990. It was discovered following her death that her husband, who was much older, actually raised Hughes from an early age. DNA testing determined they were not biological relatives. Floyd gave inconsistent stories regarding how she came to be in his custody. Floyd is the prime suspect in Hughes's death. Sevakis' true identity remained a mystery until 2014, when DNA testing confirmed that Sharon Marshall was Suzanne Marie Sevakis. Floyd was married to Sevakis' 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 remained unknown until 2019, when a man came forward believing he was the boy, which was confirmed by DNA testing in 2020. 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.[47]
1974	Argentino del Valle Larrabure	People's Revolutionary Army	Villa María, Argentina	43	Murdered	Argentine military officer who was captured by People's Revolutionary Army members during an assault. He was held in detention for 372 days, until he died in unclear circumstances.[48]
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.[49] 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.
20 February 1974	J. Reginald Murphy	William A. H. Williams	Atlanta, Georgia, US	41	Freed	American publisher and business executive who was kidnapped and held for $700,000 ransom. After it was paid two days later, Murphy was released and his kidnapper was released, but a motive for the crime was never established.[50]
12 November 1974	Jack Teich	Richard Warren Williams	Kings Point, New York, US	34	Released	Teich was kidnapped in his driveway in the evening after work. His abductors demanded and received a $750,000 ransom before the police lost sight of the retrieval. Years later, two men were tried for the crime; however, only one was convicted and served time.
18 November 1974	Eduardo Romualdez	Napoleon Lechoco	Washington, D.C., U.S.	65	Released	Filipino Ambassador to the United States who was held hostage at the Philippine Embassy by a gunman who demanded that his son be issued an exit visa and allowed to leave the country. After a 10-hour standoff, Romualdez was released without harm following negotiations with his abductor.[51]
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.[52]
27 February 1975	Peter Lorenz	Movement 2 June	West Berlin, West 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	Sheila and Katherine Lyon	Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr.	Wheaton, Maryland, US	12 (Sheila) and 10 (Katherine)	Murdered	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.[53]
5 October 1975	Lesley Molseed	Ronald Castree	Rochdale, Manchester, United Kingdom	11	Murdered	Lesley Molseed was abducted, raped and stabbed to death on 5 October 1975 by Ronald Castree. An intellectually disabled man named Stefan Kiszko was convicted after being coerced into confessing by the police, but his conviction was eventually overturned. Castree was identified through DNA evidence in 2006, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
15 July 1976	Frank Edward "Ed" Ray and 26 schoolchildren	Frederick Newhall Woods IV, James and Richard Schoenfeld	Chowchilla, California	55 (Ray), 5-14 (all children)	Escaped	Ray was driving the schoolchildren home from a summer class trip to the Chowchilla fairgrounds swimming pool in a schoolbus when a van blocked the road ahead of the bus. The three occupants of the van proceeded to abduct the entire bus and abandoning it in the Berenda Slough, a shallow branch of the Chowchilla River, where a second van was waiting. Ray and the children were forced into the vans and were taken to a quarry in Livermore, California, where they were led into a buried truck. Ray and all of the children managed to force their way out sixteen hours after being trapped in the truck. All kidnappers were arrested within two weeks after the kidnapping.[54]
14 December 1976	Richard Oetker	Dieter Zlof	Germany	28	Released	Businessman and billionaire heir who was kidnapped by a Slovene-born mechanic, who kept him shackled inside a crate and gave him electrical shocks when he resisted. While Oetker was rescued 47 hours later and Zlof sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, the incident has left him with permanent injuries to his lung.[55]
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.
13 October 1977	Gabriele von Lutzau, Horst-Gregorio Canellas	PFLP militants	Mogadishu, Somalia	23 (Lutzau), 56 (Canellas)	Rescued	Both were aboard the Lufthansa Flight 181 when it was hijacked by four PFLP extremists, who travelled across several countries before landing in Mogadishu, Somalia. They were all rescued in a joint German-Somali rescue operation.[56]
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.[57]
1978	Doina Bumbea	North Korean government	Pyongyang, North Korea (tricked into going to the city)	28	Retained until death	Possibly kidnapped to provide wives to American defectors in North Korea to avoid them from marrying Korean women and having ethnically mixed Korean children. Bumbea was forcibly married to James Joseph Dresnok and died in Pyongyang in January 1997 from lung cancer.[58]
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 21 July 1980, between a month and a year after her death.
25 May 1979	Etan Patz	Pedro Hernandez	New York City, US	6	Murdered	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.
27 December 1979	Deanna Jackman	Manuel Cortez	Ashland, Oregon, US	11	Murdered	Deanna Jackman and her friend, Rachel Isser, also 11, were both sixth-graders in separate elementary schools who had become acquainted through attending the same Jewish Sabbath school. On the afternoon of December 27, 1979, they left together to play tennis at Hunter Park, where they were met by Cortez, who struck up a conversation and then went with them to the press box of the tennis court. Once there, he used their clothes to tie them up, separating them before raping and murdering Rachel Isser. Cortez then kidnapped Deanna Jackman, bringing her to his home, where he raped and murdered her. Both girls had signs of torture and strangulation through a ligature. Prosecutors described Cortez as a dangerous sexual sadist and predator, and his trials for the sexual assault and murder of the two girls were eventually consolidated; he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.[59]

1980–1989[]

Date	Victim(s)	Abductor(s)	Location	Age of victim(s)	Outcome	Notes
14 February 1980	Timothy White	Kenneth Parnell	Ukiah, California, US	5	Rescued/escaped	White was abducted by Parnell, who had abducted Steven Stayner seven years earlier. Stayner helped White escape on 1 March 1980.
May 28, 1980	Dorothy Jane Scott	Unknown	Anaheim, California, US	32	Murdered	She was abducted in her own car from the hospital parking lot where her friend was getting a spider bite checked out. Her bones were found on August 6, 1984 next to the bones of a dog not far from Santa Ana Canyon Road, being identified by her jewelry and dental records. She had previously received numerous phone calls alternating from infatuated to threatening from an unidentified stalker. The stalker later started calling her mother and claiming responsibility for her murder. Her case remains unsolved.
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.[60][61]
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.[62]
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.
24 January 1981 and February 6, 1981	Agnes Ng Siew Heok, Ghazali bin Marzuki	Adrian Lim, Tan Mui Choo, Hoe Kah Hong	Toa Payoh, Singapore	9 (Agnes), 10 (Ghazali)	Murdered	In what became notoriously known as the Toa Payoh ritual murders, Lim and his accomplices Tan and Hoe first lured Agnes to their flat on January 24, drugged her, then drew blood from her before suffocating her. Two weeks later, on February 6, Ghazali was also lured in and murdered. This was an act done to distract the police from investigating an existing rape charge upon Lim. All three were found guilty after a 41-day trial and were given the death sentence on May 23, 1983, and were hanged on November 25, 1988.[63]
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.
15 September 1981	Ursula Herrmann	Werner Mazurek (but see below)	Schondorf, West Germany	10	Died	Ursula Herrmann, a 10-year-old schoolgirl, was abducted on her way home from a gym class. Her family received a ransom demand for 2 million Deutsche Marks, but the kidnapper or kidnappers cut off all communications before arrangements were made for delivering the money. Several days later, Ursula was found dead in a box buried in a nearby forest. The box had been stocked with enough food and drink to last a number of days but it had inadequate ventilation, and the child is believed to have died in a matter of hours; some evidence suggests she may have been dead before being locked in. Despite an extensive investigation, no culprit was apprehended at the time. In 2007, police and prosecutors renewed their investigation into Werner Mazurek, who had been a suspect at the time and had been directly implicated by an alleged accomplice, who had, however, quickly retracted his confession and witness statement and had since died. Based on this statement and circumstantial evidence, Mazurek was convicted in 2010 of kidnapping resulting in death and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mazurek continues to protest his innocence, and the victim's family have not accepted Mazurek's guilt. The family have attempted to force a new inquiry, but the case is officially closed. Since the crime was not deemed to have been a murder, it would by now have been prescribed.[64]
29 October 1981	Tina Harmon	Robert Anthony Buell	Lodi, Ohio, US	12	Murdered	Harmon 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.
3 November 1981	Marcy Renee Conrad	Anthony Jacques Broussard	Milpitas, California, U.S.	14	Murdered	High school student who was abducted, raped and killed by another student, who then dumped her body in a ravine, but brought several students to view the body. Two days later, he was denounced and arrested.[65]
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	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.
20 April 1982	Peter Pocklington	Mirko Petrović	Edmonton, Canada	40	Rescued	Canadian entrepreneur who was taken hostage, along with his wife, maid and babysitter, by a Yugoslav immigrant who had planned to kidnap Pocklington's wife. After she escaped the others released, Petrović attempted to extort Pocklington's associates for a ransom, but was prevented from doing so after police went into the house and opened fire, wounding both him and Pocklington. Both men recovered, and Petrović was later deported.[66]
17 July 1982	Krista Harrison	Robert Anthony Buell	Marshallville, Ohio, U.S.	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.
22 August 1982	Richard "Ricky" Stetson	John Joubert	Portland, Maine, USA	11	Murdered	Stetson had gone jogging on the 3.5 mile long Back Cove Trail in Portland, Maine. When he had not returned by dark, his parents called the police. The next day, a motorist discovered the boy's body on the side of US I-295.
1983	Enrique Mansilla	Unknown	Liberia	25	Released	Argentine former racing driver and later diamond hunter who was kidnapped and held captive in Liberia, but later released without incident.[67]
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 28 February 1983. She had been bound, raped and strangled. Her murder remains unsolved and her body has never been identified.
May–July 1983	Newton County John Does	Larry Eyler	Lake Village, Indiana, US	Between 15 and 23	Murdered	Two teenagers/young men murdered by a serial killer in the early 1980s. One of these individuals has been identified as 19-year-old John Brandenburg. The second individual was described by Eyler as being in "his late teens or early twenties". He specifically stated this decedent had been murdered in July 1983.[68]
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.
24 August 1983	Guillermo Patricio Kelly	Aníbal Gordon	Argentina	62	Released	Leader of the Nationalist Liberation Alliance from 1953 and 1955, noted for guiding the group into dropping its antisemitic practises. After being exiled from the country by the Perón government, he returned in 1983, only to be kidnapped and released a few hours later. Aníbal Gordon, a suspected member of a right-wing death squad, would later be convicted of this crime, among several others.[69]
18 September 1983	Danny Joe Eberle	John Joubert	Bellevue, Nebraska, USA	13	Murdered	Eberle disappeared while delivering the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. He had delivered only three of the 70 newspapers on his route. His bicycle was discovered along with the rest of the newspapers at the fourth address of his route. There appeared to be no sign of a struggle. After a three-day search, Eberle's body was discovered in a patch of high grass alongside a gravel road.
20 October 1983	Colette Aram	Paul Hutchinson	Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom	16	Murdered	A trainee hairdresser abducted, raped and strangled as she walked to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. Her murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch. Aram's murderer, Paul Hutchinson, was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010.[70]
13 December 1983	Christopher Walden	John Joubert	Papillion, Nebraska, USA	12	Murdered	Walden disappeared while walking to school. Walden's snow covered body was found two days later 5 miles (8 km) from town by 2 hunters. He had his throat cut so deeply he was nearly decapitated. [71]
16 March 1984	Tracy Marie Neef	Unknown	Thornton, Colorado, US	7	Murdered	After being dropped off to Bertha Heid Elementary School by her mother, Tracy Neef was kidnapped by an unknown abductor between the school gate and front door. She was molested and then strangled or suffocated, and was found at the Barker Reservoir later the same day with her backpack and school supplies nearby; her case remains unsolved.[72] James Benish, a retired police officer, affirmed that Neef's case may have been linked to two other unsolved murders, those of JonBenet Ramsey, also in Colorado, and of Aleisea “Lacey” Woolsey Ruff in Hawaii. He took note of common threads, that all 3 victims were young preteen girls, all had been sexually assaulted and murdered in similar fashion, and that there were similarities in the manner and circumstances of the documented or apparent abduction. Neef's unsolved murder and Benish's suggestions of a possible serial killer, and potential connection with the other cases, were detailed in the A&E Networks true crime program “Hunting JonBenét's Killer: The Untold Story”.[73]
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.[74] In 1990 it emerged that he had been abducted, drugged, tortured, raped and murdered by a London-based paedophile gang.[74][75]
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 US$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.[76]
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 9 October, 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.[77][78][79]
6 November 1984	Kylie Maybury	Gregory Keith Davies	Preston, Victoria, Australia	6	Murdered	Schoolgirl abducted on the night of the Melbourne Cup Day in 1984. Her body, showing signs of rape and strangulation, was found the next day. Her case remained unsolved until 2017, when convicted sex offender Gregory Keith Davies was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder.[80]
12 November 1984	Margaret “Peggy Sue” Altes	Unknown	Indianapolis, Indiana, US	11	Murdered	Peggy Sue Altes vanished from a park near her home in Indianapolis, and was found by hunters in woods in Hancock County, Indiana, just under a week later. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed. Her brother-in-law Jerry Watkins was arrested and convicted, but was absolved of the crime and freed from prison in 2000 when he was ruled out by DNA evidence. Joseph McCormick was then charged with her murder in 2001 and admitted to molesting her after her kidnapping, but denied killing her and had charges reduced after cooperating with investigators. The following year, Kenneth Munson, brother Hugh Munson and William L. Beever were charged with Altes’ murder, but charges were subsequently dropped against the last two. Kenneth Munson pled guilty to battery charges against Altes and was sentenced, but the murder remains officially unsolved.[81]
20 December 1984	Jonelle Matthews	Steven Pankey	Greeley, Colorado	12	Murdered	After arriving home from performing in a holiday concert at IntraWest Bank of Denver as a member of Greeley's Franklin Middle School Choir, Jonelle arrived at her Greeley home after getting a ride from her friend DeeAnn Ross and DeeAnn's father. Shortly after receiving a phone call after 8.30 pm, she was discovered missing by her father an hour later. Her body was not found until July 24, 2019, nearly 35 years after the disappearance, with a gunshot wound to her head. Police later identified the kidnapper as Steven Dana Pankey, a former Greeley resident who ran for governor in Idaho in 2014 and 2018, and for lieutenant governor in 2010. On October 13, 2020, Pankey was indicted on charges of murdering and kidnapping Matthews, and is currently awaiting extradition from Idaho.[82][83][84]
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.
11 July 1985	Suzanne Marie Collins	Sedley Alley	Millington, Tennessee, U.S.	19	Murdered	USMC lance corporal-in-training who was kidnapped while jogging near Naval Support Activity Mid-South. Her body, showing signs of rape and blunt force trauma, was found the next day. Sedley Alley, was subsequently arrested, convicted and executed in 2006.[85]
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 neighborhood. 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.[86][87]
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.
23 March 1986	Richard Chadek III	Unknown	Omaha, Nebraska, USA	13	Murdered	Chadek disappeared while riding his bike near his home. His bike was found in a bank parking lot. His body was discovered on Easter Sunday March 31. He was found in a field northwest of Omaha strangled. It was determined he was kept alive for several days after his kidnapping.[88][89]
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 Carson City a few years later. The girl has never been located.[90]
14 May 1986	Toh Hong Huat, Keh Chin Ann	Unknown	Singapore	12 (both)	Unknown	Toh and Keh both disappeared while on their way to Owen Primary School. Despite an extensive search and sightings, the boys have never been found and the case remains unsolved. The boys have also been dubbed as the "McDonald's Boys", due to McDonald's in Singapore offering a S$100,000 reward for any information on the boys.[91]
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,[92] 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	Raised by abductor	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.[93]
20 September 1988	Tara Calico	Unknown	Belen, New Mexico, US	19	Unknown	Calico disappeared near her home after taking her usual bike ride. A missing persons poster claimed she was being followed by a 1953-54 Ford Pickup and was never heard from again.[94] 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 with a white pickup truck parked next to it. The girl in the photo is believed by the family to be Calico, but this has not been confirmed. It is unclear whether Calico is still alive.[94]
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. She was never seen or heard from again, but on December 21, 2020, David Emery Misch was arrested and charged with her abduction and murder, based on fingerprint matches on the scooter.
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.[95]
14 January 1989	Paul Vanden Boeynants	Patrick Haemers and his gang	Belgium	69	Released	Vanden Boeynants, a Belgian politician, was released one month after his abduction when a ransom was paid.
2 October 1989	Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve	ELN guerillas	Arauquita, Colombia	73	Murdered	Roman Catholic priest and staunch opponent of the ELN who was abducted and killed on October 2, 1989. His remains were located the next day next to the Venezuelan border.[96]
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.
30 October 1989	Lee Iseli	Westley Allan Dodd	Portland, Oregon, US	4	Murdered	Lee Iseli was abducted, sexually abused and strangled by serial killer Westley Allan Dodd in Portland, Oregon. According to Dodd's own testimony, he resuscitated Iseli after killing him and then asphyxiated him again, but more slowly.

1990–1999[]

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.
30 August 1990	Diana Turbay	Los Priscos	Medellín, Colombia	40	Murdered	Colombian journalist who was kidnapped by associates of the Medellín Cartel, who had duped her into believing that she was going to interview guerilla leader Manuel Pérez. She was held in Copacabana until January 25, 1991, when she was killed during a botched rescue attempt by police.[97]
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.
16 March 1991	Jessica Keen	Marvin Lee Smith, Jr.	West Jefferson, Ohio, U.S.	15	Murdered	Student who was abducted, raped and killed at a cemetery. Her body was discovered two days later, and her killer arrested in 2008.[98]
4 April 1991	Angela Hammond	Unknown	Clinton, Missouri, US	20	Unknown	Hammond was kidnapped from a parking lot at night whilst using a payphone to call her boyfriend. Her boyfriend chased a pickup truck for a couple of miles until his transmission broke down.
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.[99]
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.[100]
6 September 1992	Corinne "Punky" Gustavson	Clifford Sleigh	Edmonton, Alberta	6	Murdered	Corinne was kidnapped from the front yard of her family home by an unknown male. Two days later her body was found 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) away in an industrial yard. On 14 March 2003, after using new DNA techniques, Clifford Sleigh was identified as the suspect, whom was already serving time in an Alberta prison for another crime. He was given a life sentence on 27 May 2005.[101][102]
8 September 1992	Pam Basu	Rodney Eugene Solomon and Bernard Eric Miller	Savage, Maryland, U.S.	34	Murdered	Basu, who was driving her 2-year-old daughter to preschool, had her car jacked by two assailants who tride to speed away. However, Basu's arm was stuck in the seatbelt, resulting in her being dragged and eventually killed. Solomon was later sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, while Miller, a minor, was sentenced to life imprisonment.[103]
23 September 1992	Džamba	Serb Volunteer Guard	Belgrade, Serbia	38–39	Unknown	Known as "The Don of Dorćol", Džamba was a Yugoslavian gangster based in Belgrade. On the day of his disappearance, he had attempted to enter a casino while in a drunken state, for which he was beaten up by casino guards and thrown out, but he was never found. It is suspected that he was killed, but the prime suspect in the case was himself killed in 1997.[104]
13 December 1992	Nissim Toledano	Four Hamas members	Lod, Israel	29	Murdered	Senior Sgt. Toledano, an Israeli border policeman, was kidnapped while walking from home to attend his job. He was held in captivity by four members of Hamas, who demanded that their leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin be released. The request was refused, and Toledano's body was found two days later. All four of his killers were eventually captured and sentenced to life imprisonment, and the case led the Israeli government to organize a crackdown on Palestinian fundamentalists.[105]
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.
19 February 1993	Jennifer Renee Odom	Unknown	Dade City, Florida, US	12	Murdered	Jennifer Odom had stepped off a school bus, a short walk from her home in Florida, when she was kidnapped by an unknown abductor. Her body was found in an orange grove on February 25, 1993, nude and with signs of sexual assault and blunt force trauma. The case remains unsolved, however authorities have identified a person or persons of interest, and were able to lift fingerprints from her backpack, which was found two years after her kidnapping along with a clarinet case that she had in her possession. Police enlisted the help of psychic Nancy Myer, who was apparently able to anticipate discovery of the latter two items, a consultation featured in the true crime documentary series Unsolved Mysteries with Dennis Farina (Season 6 Episode 1). Police continue to seek tips, and her abduction and murder remain a cold case under active investigation to firmly establish a culprit.[106][107]
5 August 1993	Yaron Chen	Hamas	Ramallah, West Bank	20	Murdered	Pvt. Chen, an Israeli soldier, was intercepted while hitchhiking back home from a military base by a group of men driving a white Fiat van. They attempted to kidnap him, but he was killed in the ensuing struggle. Hamas member Fahed Sabri Barhan al-Shaludi was later convincted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime, but was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.[108]
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,[109] 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.[110] 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	Murdered	Estell was last seen with her parents at a soccer tournament at Carpenter Park heading towards a playground.[111] Michael Blair was convicted for the murder but later exonerated after a DNA test proved he was not the killer.[112]
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.
20 February 1994	Hostages of the 1994 Peshawar school bus hijacking	Three Afghani militants	Peshawar, Pakistan	Various	Rescued	A school bus occupied by seven teachers and approximately 70 children was kidnapped by three Afghani militants which held them for ransom, demanding that they be provided with supplies and an escort to Kabul. The day after the kidnapping, all three assailants were killed by the Special Service Group.[113]
3 June 1994	Hacı Karay, Savaş Buldan, Adnan Yıldırım	Turkish Security Forces	Istanbul, Turkey	44 (Karay), 33 (Buldan), 37 (Yıldırım)	Murdered	Kurdish businessmen who were abducted by Turkish officers after allegations that they were affiliated with the PKK. Their bodies near a village road the day after their abduction.[114]
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.
29 July 1994	Megan Kanka	Jesse Timmendequas	Hamilton Township, New Jersey, US	7	Murdered	Kanka was lured into the home of a 33-year-old neighbor and convicted sex offender named Jesse Timmendequas, who proceeded to rape and murder her. Kanka's abduction and murder ultimately led to the passing of "Megan's Law"; a federal law which requires authorities to make all information relating to convicted sex offenders.[115]
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.
14 May 1995	Chadrel Rinpoche	CCP agents	Chengdu, China	55	Unknown	Gelug lama of Tibet who was abducted and placed under arbitrary house arrest by police officials. He reportedly died from a suspicious poisoning in 2011, but his remains have never been recovered.[116]
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.
24 September 1995	Cory Quirino	Commander Joey and four accomplices	Laguna, Philippines	42	Rescued	Filipino TV host and broadcaster who was abducted by five armed gunmen who killed her driver. She was eventually rescued when the getaway car ran into a police roadblock, and her kidnappers fled the scene.[117]
16 November 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.[118] The task force investigating Amber's murder was dissolved in June 1997.[119] Her murder inspired the creation of the AMBER Alert system.
17 January 1996	José Antonio Ortega Lara	ETA	Burgos, Spain	38	Rescued	On 17 January 1996 José Antonio Ortega Lara was kidnapped in the garage of his home in Burgos when he was returning from his work in the prison of Logroño. Days later, ETA said they were responsible for the kidnapping and demanded the transfer of ETA prisoners to Basque prisons in exchange for his release.[120] The conditions of his kidnapping were painful: the dungeon in which he was kept was very wet (it was a few meters from the river Deva), there were no windows and it measured 3 meters long by 2.5 wide and 1.8 m high inside. Ortega Lara could only take three steps on it. He had a small light bulb and he was only fed with fruits and vegetables. He could not leave the cabin and made his physiological needs at a urinal, on which he also received the water to wash himself. At the time of his rescue by Spanish police, Ortega Lara had lost 23 kilos, muscle mass and bone density. He suffered from sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression.[121][122]
February 1996	Tanya Nicole Kach	Thomas Hose	McKeesport, Pennsylvania, US	15	Rescued	She was manipulated at her high school by on staff security guard Thomas Hose and eventually convinced to run away with him. Kach was imprisoned in his bedroom and left with a bucket as a toilet, being regularly sexually abused and being let out of the house under strict conditions and curfew, under the alias "Nikki Allen". On March 21, 2006, she finally came to grips with her kidnapping and reported to a local grocery store owner, who called the police and arrested Hose. Kach has tried numerous times to file endangerment lawsuits, all being thrown out in court, and she's been counter-sued by family and friends under grounds of plagiarism and defamation.
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.
4 July 1996	Cynthia Allinger	Guy Matthew Rasmussen	Lakewood, Washington, US	9	Murdered	Cynthia “Cyndi” Allinger was a 9-year-old girl who had recently moved with her mother and sisters to Lakeview in the state of Washington. Her mother left for an errand while Cyndi played at a park nearby on July 4, 1996. She did not return home, and was found roughly two weeks later, rolled up in a carpet at a grassy region near her home; she had been raped and strangled. Police interviewed a number of suspects and persons of interest before linking crime scene and forensic evidence to Guy Rasmussen, a former rock band musician who resided near the area. Rasmussen was subsequently convicted of Cyndi's kidnapping, sexual assault and murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He has continued to maintain his innocence and filed a motion, supported by the Innocence Project, for a re-test of DNA evidence in 2014, but no reports have subsequently emerged from this, and he remains imprisoned for the crime as of summer 2020. The case has drawn significant and ongoing media attention due to the horror of the tragic murder and the concerns it raised surrounding “latchkey kids” and “stranger danger”, as well as discussions surrounding the perpetrator of the crime and the sequence of events involved. The case has been covered in numerous TV documentaries including Nightmare Next Door (“Little Girl Lost”), The Face of Evil (“The Root of All Evil”) and Forensic Files (“Seedy Intentions”).[123]
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.
17 November 1996	Kara Rudd	Joseph Kondro	Longview, Washington, US	12	Murdered	Kara Rudd was taken to a swimming hole in Germany Creek by Kondro, who knew both Rudd and her mother, and then to an abandoned house near the Columbia River. Once there he raped and strangled her, after which he placed her body in an abandoned Volkswagen vehicle in a ravine. Kondro aroused investigators' suspicions after sightings of his car near where Rudd had disappeared, and from indications of a struggle due to visible scratches on his person from a girl's long nails. The Volkswagen acted as a refrigerator, preserving enough forensic evidence to allow for Kondro's arrest and conviction. Kondro was also suspected in the prior kidnappings, sexual assaults and murders of two eight-year-old girls: Rima Traxler, also from Longview, and Chila Silvernails, from nearby Kalama. Although he did not admit to Silvernails’ murder, he eventually confessed to Traxler's as part of a plea deal that avoided the death penalty, explaining that he had learned of the young girl's "safety password" provided by her mother, which he used to deceive her into coming with him. He was sentenced to a term of 55 years’ incarceration, and died in prison. Kondro was dubbed "The Longview Serial Killer" by author Lori Carangelo, and Rudd's and Traxler's abductions and the detective work that apprehended Kondro featured in several true crime documentaries, including On the Case with Paula Zahn (episode "Broken Trust") and Cold Case Files ("Unicorns and Alligators").[124][125]
31 January 1997	Rosalynn McGinnis	Henri Piette	Poteau, Oklahoma, US	12	Escaped	Kidnapped by her stepfather and relocated to Mexico along with his three other children. McGinnis gave birth to nine children by her kidnapper. McGinnis and eight of her nine children escaped in June 2016, able to return to US; her eldest had already left home but reunited later. Eventually Piette was apprehended in Mexico City (while seeking a passport), and placed in U.S. custody.[126][127]
30 April 1997	Zephany Nurse	Lavona Solomon	Cape Town, South Africa	2 days	Raised by abductor	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.
10 July 1997	Miguel Ángel Blanco	ETA	Ermua, Basque Country, Spain	29	Murdered	On 10 July 1997, Spanish politician of Partido Popular Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped by the terrorist group ETA which threatened to assassinate him unless the Spanish Government started to transfer all ETA prisoners to prisons in the Basque Country within 48 hours. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in demonstrations all throughout Spain, demanding the release of Miguel Ángel. But 50 minutes after the deadline expired, at 16:50 of 12 July, he was shot in the back of the head.[128] Shortly thereafter, he was found on the outskirts of San Sebastián, in the throes of death, with his hands tied.[129] He died in the hospital at 4:30 a.m. on 13 July.
16 September 1997	Brittney Ann Beers	Unknown	Sturgis, Michigan, US	6	Unknown	6-year-old Brittney 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. Brittney walked over to the witness and told him that she 'made a new friend'. She was never seen again. In 2016 there was a significant lead after a killer confessed to the murder of 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 Brittney. The case remains open.[130][131][132]
21 September 1997	Guo Xinzhen	Hu Mou	Liaocheng	2	Rescued	Xinzhen was abducted from outside his home in 1997 by Hu Mou and his girlfriend, "Tang".[133] The two kidnappers then sold him to a couple in central China for money. He was only found twenty-four years later when police used databases to find out what he would look like as an adult, and his identity was confirmed by DNA testing.[134]
30 September 1997	Walter Kwok	Cheung Chi Keung	Hong Kong	47	Released	Kwok was kidnapped by the notorious gangster "Big Spender" Cheung Chi Keung[135] 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.[136]
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.[137][138][139][140][141][142][143]
15 December 1997	Delimar Vera Cuevas	Carolyn Correa	Frankford, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US	10 days	Raised by abductor	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 was arrested.[144] The story was later dramatized in the Lifetime Movie Network film Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story.
1998	Mary Quin	Islamic militants	Yemen	unknown	Escaped	American-New Zealand national and chief executive of Callaghan Innovation who was kidnapped with others from her tourist group by Islamic militants. She later escaped, and her kidnappers were later arrested.[145]
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. Přiklopil knew that the police were after him, so he killed himself by jumping in front of a train.
10 July 1998	Kamiyah Mobley	Gloria Williams	Jacksonville, Florida, US	Less than one day	Raised by abductor	Mobley was abducted from hospital at eight hours old. She was reunited with her birth parents in January 2017 following DNA testing.
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.[146]
29 July 1998	Julie Ann Holmquist	Curtiss Cedargren	Hallock, Minnesota, US	16	Murdered	Holmquist was kidnapped while inline skating. On 20 Aug., a hunter found Julie's badly decomposed body in a gravel pit near Lancaster. Four years later, suspect Curtiss Cedergren, 38, shot and killed himself as an investigator arrived at his Lancaster, Minn., home to arrange for a lie detector test. Authorities later detailed evidence they had collected and said with confidence that Cedergren was responsible for Holmquist's death.[147]
30 July 1998	Felicia Ann Elliott	Charles (Chad) Wayne Green and Billy Dale Green	Randolph County, Arkansas, US	8	Murdered	Felicia Elliott's family was slain by Chad Green and his father, Billy Dale Green, in a home invasion, after which Felicia was kidnapped, bound with duct tape and held in a barrel by her captors, and raped by Chad Green. Billy Green then slit her throat, and her remains were found in a creek bed over 2 years later. The Greens were arrested in July 2003 and charged with the murders and Felicia's abduction, and after the initial verdict had been overturned, the father and son were re-tried and again convicted, being sentenced to multiple life terms. The motive for the murders was unclear as the Greens were known methamphetamine and other drug dealers, but there was also a question of whether Chad, a known sex offender, had targeted Felicia well before the home invasion.[148] The case was detailed in true crime author George Jared's book, ‘’The Creek Side Bones’’.
19 January 1999	Lisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon	Alan Hopkinson	Hastings, England	10	Rescued	Hoodless and Lunnon were forced into Hopkinson's car on their way to school. He held them in his flat for three days where he sexually abused them. They were rescued when police visited Hopkinson's flat. Hopkinson was given a life sentence on 28 May 1999.[149][150][151]
27 January 1999	Shemeka Denise Ray	Unknown	Columbus, Georgia, US	11	Murdered	Shemeka Ray was kidnapped from her home in Cusseta, Georgia and found the following day in a ravine off Route 268, near the Interstate 85 freeway in Columbus. She had died of blunt force trauma to the head. Her case remains unsolved.[152][153]
12 April 1999	Leszli Kálli	Guerrillas	Colombia	18	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 along with her father and almost 3 dozen other passengers. She published a novel about her experiences. While some passengers were released quickly, many of the hostages were released only whenever their specific ransom was paid. The last hostage, Gloria Amaya de Alfonso, was not released until 22 November 2000, 19 months after the hijacking.[154]
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.[155] 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. He was executed for the crime on August 28, 2020, at USP Terre Haute.[156]

2000–2009[]

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.
18 November 2001	Alexandra Flores	David Santiago Renteria	El Paso, Texas, U.S.	5	Murdered	Abducted while wandering around a Walmart by a convicted sex offender, who proceeded to rape and murder her. Flores' body was found the next day. Renteria was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.[157]
1 January 2002	Alicia Kozakiewicz	Scott Tyree	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US	13	Rescued	Kozakiewicz was groomed over the Internet and eventually lured into meeting Tyree, who forced her into his vehicle and took her to his home in Virginia. She was held captive, shackled, raped, and tortured for four days in Tyree's basement, and he broadcast his actions via live streaming video. One viewer of Tyree's live streams reported his actions anonymously to the FBI, who tracked down Kozakiewicz and freed her. Kozakiewicz has become a motivational speaker and an advocate for missing persons.[158]
18 January 2002	Celso Daniel	Unknown	Jardins, Brazil	50	Murdered	Mayor of Santo André who was abducted by criminals and later killed, his body 8 days after his kidnapping. His murderers have never been identified, but the motive for the killing is suspected to be political in nature.[159]
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.
21 March 2002	Amanda "Milly" Dowler	Levi Bellfield	Surrey, England	13	Murdered	Dowler disappeared on her way home from school. Her body was found on 18 September 2002. Bellfield was found guilty of her abduction and murder on 23 June 2011.
3 May 2002	Alexis Patterson	Unknown	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US	7	Unknown	Patterson was last seen by her stepfather, LaRon Bourgeois, as he dropped her off at her elementary school. Her parents reported her missing when she failed to return home, at which time they learned that Alexis had not been in her classes and was not even seen inside the school building. On 14 May 2002, investigators officially announced they were pursuing the case as a likely criminal act. No trace of her has ever been found, nor have investigators been able to ascertain any further information about her disappearance.[160]
5 June 2002	Elizabeth Smart	Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Eileen Barzee	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. Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping, while Barzee was sentenced to 15 years.
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.
3 December 2002	Kacie Rene Woody	David Leslie Fuller	Holland, Arkansas, U.S.	13	Murdered	Woody had been groomed online by Fuller, who lived in California and posed as a 17-year-old when he was really 47. He traveled to her home in Arkansas and abducted her at approximately 8:41pm CST on 3 December 2002. The next day, law enforcement found them both deceased inside a storage unit in Conway, where Fuller had bound and raped Woody inside his rented minivan before shooting her and himself.[161][162]
c. 2003	Sheila White	Unknown	New York City, New York, U.S.	15	Escaped	Teenager who became a human trafficking victim after being sent to a group home, where she was repeatedly raped and abused by a pimp who forced her into prostitution. She eventually managed to escape and has since become an anti-sex trafficking activist.[163]
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.
20 October 2003	Cecilia Zhang	Min Chen	Toronto, Canada	9	Murdered	Chen abducted Zhang from her home in the middle of the night and killed her. Her body was found on March 27, 2004. Chen claimed her death was an accident, but was later sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for her murder.
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 child sex offender 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.[164] Cowan was sentenced to life imprisonment on 14 March 2014.[165]
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.
9 March 2004	Brittany Hendrickson	Fred Mundt, Jr.	Lebanon, Ohio, US	7	Murdered	Brittany Hendrickson was kidnapped from her home by Frederick Mundt, her mother's boyfriend, who had been babysitting her and her siblings. She was raped and suffered blunt-force trauma, dying from drowning after Mundt threw her into a well. Mundt was later arrested and his DNA found to be a match for samples taken upon autopsy from Hendrickson. He was sentenced to the death penalty, upheld upon appeal.[166]
15 March 2004	Kriss Donald	Five Pakistani men	Glasgow, Scotland	15	Murdered	Schoolboy who was abducted and subsequently stabbed to death by a gang of British Pakistani men. The racially-motivated murder sparked controversy for the lack of coverage in such cases.[167]
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.
16 June 2004	Sean Goldman	Bruna Bianchi Carneiro Ribeiro	Brazil	4	Solved	An international child abduction case. Goldman was abducted from the United States by his Brazilian mother when she took her son to her native country, ostensibly for a two-week vacation. She refused to return to the United States with her child and successfully filed for a divorce. Four years later, Goldman's mother died while giving birth to a child with her second husband. He was returned to his father in 2009.[168]
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 August 2004	Enzo Baldoni	Islamic Army in Iraq militants	Najaf, Iraq	55	Murdered	Italian freelance journalist who was kidnapped by Islamist militants while in Iraq. His captors later filmed his execution, but his body was never recovered.[169]
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.
17 November 2004	Kaede Ariyama	Kaoru Kobayashi	Nara, Japan	7	Murdered	Abducted while walking home from school by convicted pedophile Kaoru Kobayashi, who murdered her and then dumped her body in Heguri, which was found on the same day. The murder caused a moral panic against otaku culture.[170]
2004		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.[171]
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. However, Couey died of natural causes in 2009, before his sentence could be carried out.[172]
6 May 2005	Mary-Ann Leneghan	Six men	Reading, England	16	Murdered	Leneghan and a friend were kidnapped from Prospect Park by a group of six men who drugged, tortured and raped both of them. Leneghan was killed and her body found the next day, while her friend survived despite being shot in the head.[173]
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.
3 July 2005	Ihab el-Sherif	AQI militants	Baghdad, Iraq	51	Murdered	Egyptian ambassador to Iraq who was abducted by Islamist militants on July 3, 2005, while he was buying a newspaper in Baghdad. Four days later, a video was posted on the internet in which el-Sherif's captors claimed that he had been killed for having ties with Israel, and his death was later confirmed by the Egyptian government.[174]
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.[175] They were freed after 52 days. Cassez was convicted and given a 61-year sentence for the abduction.[citation needed]
19 October 2005	Rory Carroll	unknown	Baghdad, Iraq	33	Released	Irish journalist and reporter who was abducted by an unknown group after doing an interview with a victim of Saddam Hussein's regime. Following lobbying from several organizations and both the Irish and Iraqi governments, he was released unharmed on the following day.[176]
6 January 2006	Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom	Five carjackers	Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.	21 (Christian) 23 (Newsom)	Murdered	Couple who were kidnapped by five assailants while driving to a friend's house party, who then proceeded to rape, torture and finally murder them. Each of the participants was convicted and given either long prison terms, life imprisonment without parole or in the ringleader's case, a death sentence.[177]
20 June 2006	Frauke Liebs	Unknown	Paderborn, Germany	21	Dead, cause of death could not be determined	Frauke Liebs disappeared on 20 June on her way home from a pub. Until 27 June Frauke Liebs texted and phoned her housemate several times claiming to come home soon, but evading questions. During her last call on 27 June Frauke is said to have answered the question of whether she was being held captive with a faint "yes", immediately followed by a loud "no". Contact broke off after this phone call. Her skeletonized body was discovered by a hunter in a forest by Lichtenau on 4 October. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, the time and cause of Liebs' death could not be determined.
17 September 2006	Coralrose Fullwood	Patrick Dewayne Murphy	North Port, Florida, US	6	Murdered	Coralrose Fullwood was kidnapped from her Florida home and taken to a house nearby, where she was sexually assaulted. Her body, naked and with signs of asphyxiation and blunt force trauma, was found wrapped in a comforter near a construction site not far from her family home. DNA was isolated from under the girl's fingernails, indicating a struggle with her attacker, which was then linked to Patrick Murphy, who lived about two miles away. Murphy pleaded guilty to Fullwood's murder and was given a sentence of life in prison. An informant subsequently notified police of a video recording from the house where Fullwood was killed, and authorities continue to investigate the possibility of other participants in her murder.[178]
18 October 2006	Altantuya Shaariibuu	Abdul Razak Baginda, Azilah Hadri, Sirul Azhar Umar	Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia	28	Murdered	Mongolian former model Altantuya was abducted by Razak Baginda over alleged involvement of persons close to then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak. She was either murdered directly by explosives or being shot before blown up in a forested land near Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, by Azilah and Sirul, who were members of Malaysia's Special Actions Unit, the resulting trial and convictions attracting international attention. The exact mastermind of the murder remains unknown, but is widely speculated to be Najib, who has constantly denied relationship with Altantuya.[179]
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.
7 February 2007	João Hélio	Five young males	Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil	6	Murdered	Young boy who was riding in the back of his parents' car, when a group of armed carjackers broke in and stole the vehicle. While attempting to flee, they dragged the body along the pavements, mutilating it horribly. Each of the carjackers was later convicted and given long prison sentences.[180]
3 May 2007	Madeleine McCann	Christian Brueckner[181]	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. Brueckner was linked to the crimes when investigators discovered swimsuits. Using information from a cell tower, investigators discovered that on the night Madeleine disappeared a call was made to Brueckner's cellphone approximately one hour before she went missing. That data linked him to the crime.[182]
5 July 2007	Margaret Hill	Seven gunmen	Port Harcourt, Nigeria	3	Released	Hill, a British girl, was abducted from a car taking her to school by a group of gunmen, who threatened to kill her if her father, who worked as an oil industry consultant, did not agree to switch places with her. She was released three days later on 8 July after rebel forces threatened the abductors.[183][184][185]
20 August 2007	Nurin Jazlin Jazimin	Unknown	Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	7	Murdered	Jazlin went missing on August 20, 2007 after she had gone to a wet market near her house to buy a hair clip. Her body was found 28 days later, on September 17, in a gym bag was left in front of a shop lot in Petaling Jaya, with a cucumber and an eggplant stuffed inside her genitals. CCTV footage of her abduction and the abandoning of the bag were obtained but the perpetrators were never identified and apprehended.[186]
3 November 2007	Rowan Damia Ford	Chris Collings	Stella, Missouri, US	9	Murdered	Rowan Ford, a 9-year-old girl then under the care of David Spears, her stepfather, was kidnapped from her home by Collings, a friend of Spears, after a night of heavy drinking. Collings took her to a trailer on his property in Barry County, Missouri where he raped and strangled her; she was found a week later, naked and bloodied, at the bottom of a sinkhole that opened into a cave in nearby McDonald County.[187][188] Collings was apprehended and convicted of first-degree murder in 2012 and sentenced to the death penalty, while Spears pled guilty to child endangerment and hindering prosecution and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.[189][190][191]
8 November 2007	Jodi Christine Parrack	Daniel Furlong	Constantine, Michigan, US	11	Murdered	Jodi Parrack, a fifth-grader at Riverside Elementary School, was kidnapped off her bicycle while riding beside the home of Furlong, who took her into his garage. He then sexually assaulted her in a boat inside, bound her with zip-ties, and smothered her with a plastic bag. She was later found at a local cemetery.[192] Authorities initially apprehended Raymond McCann, a reserve police officer, after McCann had suggested to a search party to survey the cemetery, and he eventually pleaded no contest and was sentenced to a prison term for perjury. However Daniel Furlong, a local youth sports coach, was taken into custody after a subsequent attempted abduction and discovery of a “kidnap list” in his home, which aroused suspicion of a possible connection to the disappearance of another local little girl, Brittney Beers, and he eventually confessed in 2015 to Parrack's kidnapping and murder after his DNA was found to match samples from the crime scene.[193] Furlong received a sentence of 30-to-60 years in prison, while McCann was fully exonerated of the crime and his perjury conviction overturned. The case and its eventual resolution were depicted in the episode “Small Town Killer” on the true crime series ‘’Scene of the Crime with Tony Harris’’.[194]
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.
9 January 2008	Sharlinie Mohd Nashar	Unknown	Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia	4	Unknown	Sharlinie went missing after visiting a playground 200 meters away from her home in Taman Datuk Harun, Petaling Jaya. Her whereabouts remain unknown.[195]
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.
4 March 2008	Lauren Burk	Courtney Lockhart	Auburn, Alabama, U.S.	18	Murdered	Auburn University freshman who was kidnapped at gunpoint by a recently-discharged veteran who was on a months-long violent crime spree. During the trip, her kidnapped robbed, stripped her naked and finally shot her in the lung, causing serious injuries from which Burk would succumb to in the hospital. Lockhart was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death for her murder.[196]
25 June 2008	Brooke Bennett	Michael Jacques	Randolph, Vermont, US	12	Murdered	Brooke Bennett was lured into the home of Michael Jacques, her uncle, by a teenage acquaintance who had been previously sexually assaulted by Jacques. Bennett was then kidnapped, drugged, raped, and murdered, and her body buried in a makeshift grave about a mile from Jacques’ home. There were initial claims that Bennett had been the victim of a fictitious sex ring called “Breckinridge”, but Jacques was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to the crime, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.[197][198][199]
28–29 July 2008	Valentin Crémault	Stéphane Moitoriet and Noëlla Hégo	Lagnieu, France	11	Murdered	French boy who was abducted by a tramp while riding his bicycle, with Moitoriet stabbing him to death that same day. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, later reduced to 30 years imprisonment.[200]
3 December 2008	Jestina Mukoko	Zimbabwe state agents	Harare, Zimbabwe	unknown	Released	Zimbabwean human rights activist who was detained for alleged "anti-government demonstrations". She was released on bail in March 2009, and the charges dropped in September of that year.[201]
11 December 2008	Na-young	Cho Doo-soon	Ansan, South Korea	8	Rescued	Elementary school student who was kidnapped and thereby assaulted by a repeat sexual offender. The case sparked huge controversy, inspiring the 2013 film Hope.[202]
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 fisherman discovered her body along the banks of the River Raisin in Raisinville Township on 4 June 2009.
26 June 2009	Lindsey Baum	Unknown	McCleary, WA, US	10	Murdered	Baum disappeared walking home from the home of a friend in the small town of McCleary, 20 miles west of Olympia. Her remains were not found until September 2017, by hunters in remote eastern Washington; positive identification was announced in May 2018.[203]
9 August 2009	Zarema Sadulayeva	Unknown	Grozny, Russia	35	Murdered	Russian children's activist who, together with her husband Alik Djabrailov, kidnapped by gunmen while driving in their car. A day later, the pair were later found shot to death.[204]
31 December 2009	Masego Kgomo	Brian Mangwale	Soshanguve, South Africa	10	Murdered	Masego was kidnapped for a Muti killing by Brian Mangwale. It is believed that she may have been gang raped before being taken to the sangoma.[205]

2010–2019[]

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.
15 May 2010	Hostages of the 2010 Kurram agency mass kidnapping	Taliban militants (suspected)	Kurram District, Pakistan	Various	Rescued	61 people, predominantly civilians, were held hostages by militants who posed as policemen from a convoy en route to Parachinar, most of whom were later released. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident, but the Pakistani government has accused the Taliban for orchestrating it.[206]
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.
4 September 2010	Umar Cheema	ISI operatives (alleged)	Pakistan	unknown	Released	Investigative reporter for The News International who was abducted, beaten, flogged and sexually assaulted by an unidentified group of men, who he claimed to be ISI operatives who had targeted him due to his journalistic work.[207]
10 November 2010	Sarah Maynard	Matthew Hoffman	Mount Vernon, Ohio, US	13	Rescued	Hoffman killed Sarah's mother, brother, and mother's friend before kidnapping her and holding her captive in his basement in a bed of leaves. Hoffman admitted to raping her and was arrested in November by two arriving officers, thus rescuing Sarah.[208]
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 off in the 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.[209] Shrien was suspected of masterminded the kidnapping and murder of his wife.[210]
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 the video has not been located. Bobo's body was found in September 2014.[211]
29 April 2011	Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb	Syrian government	Daraa, Syria	13	Murdered	Syrian boy detained by government officials while attempting to break the Siege of Daraa. After his detention, Al-Khateeb was viciously tortured and eventually killed, before his mutilated body was returned to his family.[212]
12 May 2011	Timmothy James Pitzen[213]	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 Timmothy was safe and would never be found.[214] Timmothy was not with her the last time she was seen alive, and his whereabouts are still unknown.
27 May 2011	Saleem Shahzad	ISI operatives (alleged)	Islamabad, Pakistan	40	Murdered	Investigative journalist who was abducted, tortured and killed, presumably by ISI agents, for his writings criticizing the government and raising questions about kidnappings of fellow journalists.[215]
11 July 2011	Leiby Kletzky	Levi Aron	New York City, US	8	Murdered	Kletzky was kidnapped on his way home from day camp in his Hasidic Jewish neighborhood. 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 not 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 31 March 2017, her remains were found.[citation needed]
26 June 2012	Sierra Newbold	Terry Lee Black	West Jordan, Utah, US	6	Murdered	Sierra Newbold was kidnapped from her home and subsequently raped and strangled by Black, who left her in a nearby canal to drown. She was found by a search party later the same day. Black, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychiatric issues, was found competent to stand trial. He accepted an Alford plea and was given a sentence of 65 years-to-life in prison.[216][217]
12 August 2012	Hüseyin Aygün	PKK militants	Ovacık, Turkey	42	Released	CHP politician and lawyer who was kidnapped by PKK militants while travelling along a highway. While his aides were immediately released, he was held in detention for two days before being released without harm.[218]
1 October 2012	April Jones	Mark Bridger	Machynlleth, Wales	5	Murdered	Jones was lured into a van by Bridger. Bridger killed her soon afterward, but only small fragments of her body have been found.
5 October 2012	Jessica Ridgeway	Austin Sigg	Westminster, Colorado, US	10	Murdered	Jessica Ridgeway was a 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped and murdered on 5 October 2012 while walking to school. She failed to return home from school and an AMBER Alert was issued. On 10 October, her dismembered remains were found in a ditch in a park in Arvada. Her abductor was 17-year-old Austin Sigg, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 19 November 2013.
20 November 2012	Jersey Bridgeman	Zachary Holly	Bentonville, Arkansas, US	6	Murdered	Jersey Bridgeman was kidnapped from her home after Holly, who had been babysitting her, had put her to bed. She was sexually assaulted and suffocated. Authorities later found her in a vacant home nearby. Holly was arrested and charged with capital murder, rape, kidnapping and residential burglary, subsequently convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. David and Jana Bridgeman, Jersey's father and stepmother, had previously pled guilty on child abuse charges.[219][220]
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.
21 June 2013	Cherish Perrywinkle	Donald James Smith	Jacksonville, Florida, US	8	Murdered	Cherish Lily Perrywinkle had been with her mother, Rayne Perrywinkle, and two sisters at a Dollar General when they met Donald Smith, who took them to a local Walmart to shop with a gift card. Smith suggested that they get food at a nearby McDonald's and Cherish went with him, but surveillance cameras indicated that he left the store with her, after which she vanished. She was found the next day, having been sexually assaulted and strangled. Smith was apprehended and found guilty of the girl's abduction, rape, and murder, and sentenced to capital punishment in the Florida courts.[221]
6 November 2013	Bethany Arceneaux	Scott Thomas	Lafayette, Louisiana, US	29	Rescued	Arceneaux, a twenty-nine-year-old mother, was abducted by her ex-boyfriend Scott Thomas while picking her young son up from daycare. Two days later, Arceneaux's family located the house Thomas was holding her in and kicked down the door, where they found Thomas stabbing Arceneaux repeatedly. One of them shot Thomas dead and Arceneaux made a full recovery. Nobody was charged in Thomas's death.[222]
18 February 2014	Hailey Owens	Craig Michael Wood	Springfield, Missouri, US	10	Murdered	Hailey Owens had been walking home from a friend's house when a man in a truck pulled over, called her, and asked for directions. As she approached him, he grabbed her, threw her into his truck, and sped away. Her body was found in the home of 45-year-old Craig Michael Wood, in Springfield. She was raped and shot in the back of the head. Wood was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death by lethal injection.[223]
24 February 2014	Antonio Cermeño	Unknown	Miranda, Venezuela	44	Murdered	Venezuelan boxer and two-time world title champion who was kidnapped together his wife by unidentified assailants in east Caracas. While his wife escaped, Cermeño was unable to, and his body was found just a day later along a highway.[224]
27 February 2014	Benjamín Galván Gómez	Los Zetas gang members	Tamaulipas, Mexico	41	Murdered	Businessman, PRI politician and mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas between 2011 and 2013. Frequently threatened due to his anti-organized crime sentiment, Galván was abducted from a drugstore on February 27, 2014. His mutilated corpse was found the next day, and positively identified a month later. Several suspected Los Zetas members were arrested for his murder, but all were killed before they could go to trial.[225]
19 March 2014	Serhiy Hayduk	Pro-Russian security services	Sevastopol, Ukraine	51	Released	Ukrainian Navy commander who was tortured by pro-Russian security forces who had taken over the Navy's headquarters in Sevastopol. He and several others were released on the following day on orders from the Russian Defense Minister.[226]
12 June 2014	Naphtali Frankel, Gilad Shar, Ayal Yiphrach	Hamas militants suspected	Gush Etzion, West Bank	Naphtali-16, Gilad-16, Ayal-19	Murdered
20 July 2014	Oron Shaul	Hamas	near Shuja'iyya, Gaza Strip	21	Murdered, body taken hostage	Oron Shaul, a 21-year-old IDF sergeant, was kidnapped by members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade after an anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli army tank during the Battle of Shuja'iyya. As of 2020, the bodies of Shaul and fellow IDF soldier Hadar Goldin are still being ransomed by Hamas, which is demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in return.
5 September 2014	Eston Kohver		Estonia	43	Released	Officer of the Estonian Internal Security Service who was accused by Russian forces of espionage, of which he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. His conviction was considered unlawful by other countries, and Kohver was eventually released in a prisoner exchange on September 26, 2015.[227]
18 October 2014	Donna Eastwood	Joshua Caird	Dartford, England	26	Murdered	Englishwoman who was kidnapped by her neighbor after attending a friend's birthday party. Her burned out remains were found on the same day. Caird was subsequently arrested, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.[228]
15 April 2015	Chloé Ansel	Zbigniew Huminski	Calais, France	9	Murdered	Ansel was kidnapped near her home in Calais, and her body found only hours later, showing obvious signs of sexual assault and strangulation. That same day, Polish national Zbigniew Huminski was arrested and confessed to the crime while intoxicated, but would never be brought to trial for the case, as hanged himself in his jail cell a month later.[229]
26 July 2015	Madyson Middleton	Adrian Gonzalez	Santa Cruz, California, US	8	Murdered	Madyson “Maddy” Middleton, an 8-year-old girl then about to enter the fourth grade at a local Santa Cruz elementary school, was kidnapped in the Tannery Arts Center apartment complex by Gonzalez, a 15-year-old high schooler with whom she was acquainted. She had apparently been lured to the apartment by the teen, at which point he abducted, sexually assaulted and attempted to strangle her. He then placed her in a garbage can and stabbed her after it became apparent that she had survived, and the coroner's report indicated that she died of asphyxiation. Gonzalez was close by when Maddy's body was found in a recycling bin and cameras recorded him placing her there. He was quickly arrested and charged with the crimes upon investigation, and he soon confessed to Maddy's abduction, rape, and murder. As of the summer of 2020, the case continues to face a number of legal proceedings due to Gonzalez's age. California's Proposition 57 gives a presiding judge discretion over whether to try a juvenile as an adult, but other laws in the state impose statutory restrictions on such actions, and the legal course of the trial remains unclear.[230][231][232]
12 September 2015	Seya Sadewmi	Saman Jayalath	Kotadeniyawa, Sri Lanka	4	Murdered	Sri Lankan child who was abducted, raped and murdered near her home. Her naked body was found in a canal the next day. Several men were erroneously arrested, before the actual killer was connected to the crime via DNA evidence. Saman Jayalath was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death.[233]
20 March 2016	Kasper, Mama and Troïtsa Sokol	'Wasserstrasse' organization, self-proclaimed Swiss human rights activists	Basel, Switzerland, Wasserstrasse 21	Kasper-6, Mama-4, Troïtsa-10 m.o.	Rescued	Natalia Sokol and her children Kasper, Mama, and Troïtsa were violently kidnapped by a group of 10-15 so-called Swiss human rights activists at Wasserstrasse, 21 in Basel, Switzerland on 20 March 2016. The kidnappers in motorcycle helmets, armed with wooden sticks and shields, broke down the door to the Voina family apartment and attacked the family with tear gas. After several minutes of pleading by the father, , to not use violence, some five people overcame him, beat him up, and tied him up with duct tape, leaving him incapacitated, after which another group abducted Natalia and the three children. At the time, the children were taking a bath and the perpetrators kidnapped them naked.[234]
3 April 2016	Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe	Iranian government	Imam Khomeini International Airport, Iran	38	Imprisoned	Iranian-British journalist convicted on charges of "plotting against the government". As of 2021, she remains incarcerated, as she was convicted on new charges and sentenced to one additional year in prison.[235]
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.
6 October 2016	Kim Kardashian	Five unknown men	Paris, France	36	Released	While attending Paris Fashion Week, Kardashian was supposedly robbed by five unknown individuals, who held her at gunpoint in her Paris apartment. The men fled, and she later managed to free herself. The incident was met with skepticism by media outlets, who suggested that it could've been staged, prompting Kardashian to file a lawsuit which was ultimately dropped.[236]
17 December 2016	Carlos Andrés García	SEBIN agents	Guasdualito, Venezuela	43–44	Died in custody	Venezuelan politician who was detained on charges of theft, arson and inciting public unrest, but is widely believed to have been arrested for political motives. García suffered from a stroke and later passed away while still beind held in detention, with the circumstances surrounding the case being strongly condemned by other countries' governments.[237]
21 May 2017	Thabang Makwetla	Brandon Mashigo, Mojalefa Mathe, Motsepe Gidion and Ben Kutumela	Johannesburg, South Africa	59	Released	Politician and member of the African National Congress who was abducted by four armed men and threatened to hand over his personal belongings. After withdrawing money from his bank account, Makwetla was released unharmed. The incident caused a stir among the country's prominent politicians, and the four offenders were eventually apprehended and awaiting trial for the case.[238]
23 May 2017	Chito Soganub	Maute group militants	Marawi, Philippines	57	Rescued	Roman Catholic priest who was kidnapped along with 23 others by militants during the Battle of Marawi, during which he appeared in propaganda videos and was forced to convert to Islam. He and a teacher from Dansalan College successfully escaped captivity on September 17, and were located and rescued by military officers shortly after.[239]
2 June 2017	Stanislav Aseyev	So-called Donetsk People's Republic	Donetsk, Ukraine	26	Released	On 2 June 2017, the freelance journalist Stanislav Aseyev was abducted. Initially, the de facto DNR government denied knowing his whereabouts but on 16 July, 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.[240] He was released as part of a prison exchange and handed over to Ukrainian authorities on 29 December 2019.[241][unreliable source?]
9 June 2017	Yingying Zhang	Brendt Christensen	Urbana, Illinois, US	26	Murdered	On 9 June 2017, Zhang was running late for an appointment to sign a lease. While waiting at a bus stop, she was approached by Christensen in his car. Zhang got into the car and has not been heard from since. On 24 June 2019, Christensen was convicted of the murder of Yingying Zhang.[242] Her body has not been found.
28 January 2018	Rachael Anderson	Anthony Pardon	Columbus, Ohio, U.S.	24	Murdered	American aspiring funeral director who was held in her own house by repeat sexual offender Anthony Pardon, who tortured, raped and ultimately strangled her. Her body was found the next day, and Pardon was soon arrested, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.[243]
February 2018	Moataz Wadnan	Egyptian government	Egypt	unknown	Detained	Journalist for HuffPost Arabi who was arrested and is currently in state custody for interviewing Hisham Genena, a politician who claimed to possess documents revealing that government officials were behind the Egyptian revolution of 2011. He is currently imprisoned in the Tora Prison.
1 March 2018	Ezzat Ghoniem	Egyptian government	Egypt	unknown	Detained	Lawyer and human rights activist arrested and kept in detention for an alleged "human righst terrorism" plot to overthrow the government. He is currently held in the Tora Prison.
2 July 2018	Alesha MacPhail	Aaron Campbell	Airdrie, Scotland	6	Murdered	Abducted from her grandparents' house by an English-born teenager, who subsequently raped and murdered her. Her body was found two hours after her abduction, and the killer, Aaron Campbell, was arrested three days later. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.[244]
15 October 2018	Jayme Closs	Jake Patterson	Barron, Wisconsin, US	13	Escaped	Police responding to a 911 call from Closs's home found her parents shot to death. Closs was missing,[245] and on 10 January 2019 she sought the help of neighbors near the house where she was allegedly held. A man has been charged with kidnapping her and the murders of her parents.[246]
5 November 2018	Hania Noelia Aguilar	Michael McLellan	Lumberton, North Carolina, US	13	Murdered	On 5 November 2018, 13-year-old Hania Aguilar was abducted from a mobile home park as she was waiting for a ride to the bus stop.[247] A witness saw a man in black and a yellow bandanna approach her and force her into the car that she had gone to start. The stolen vehicle was located three days later.[248] Her body was found on 27 November 2018. The Lumberton Police Department with the assistance of the FBI arrested Michael McLellan, who was charged with 10 felonies related to Hania's abduction. McLellan's DNA was found in the stolen vehicle and tied to the abduction.[249]
29 March 2019	Samantha Josephson	Nathaniel Rowland	Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.	21	Murdered	Josephson, a senior college student who had gone drinking with friends, had mistakenly entered Rowland's car after believing he was her Uber driver. Her body was found 14 hours later, with numerous stab wounds. Rowland was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, and the case served as a pillar for the passing of Sami's Law in her home state of New Jersey.[250]
16 September 2019	Dulce Maria Alavez	Unknown	Bridgeton, New Jersey	5	Unknown	On 16 September 2019, 5-year-old Dulce Alavez went missing from Bridgeton City Park. Her mother, 19-year-old Noema Alavez Perez, reported that she was in her car at the park when she could not see Alavez and her 3-year-old brother playing at a nearby playground. She went to investigate, only to discover her daughter had vanished. An AMBER Alert was issued and a $52,000 reward remains unclaimed.[251]
13 November 2019	Idris Khattak	Four unknown individuals	Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan	unknown	Detained	Human rights activist who was detained and is currently scheduled to stand before a military trial for alleged espionage. His arrest is considered political in nature.[252]
30 November 2019	Dua Mangi	Four to five unknown individuals	Karachi, Pakistan	22	Released	While walking back from getting food, she was abducted by gunpoint and drawn into a vehicle. The male friend with her was shot while trying to help her. Her abduction was publicized on social media and many alleged that it was her fault she was abducted.[253]

2020s and later[]

Date	Victim	Abductor	Location	Age of victim	Outcome	Notes
10 February 2020	Faye Marie Swetlik	Coty Scott Taylor	Cayce, South Carolina, US	6	Murdered	6-year-old Faye Swetlik disappeared on 10 February 2020 and was found murdered three days later. The same day her body was found, a man named Coty Scott Taylor committed suicide and Swetlik's DNA was found in his house. Police concluded that Taylor had killed Swetlik hours after abducting her.[254]
May 2020	Cecilia Chimbiri, Joana Mamombe and Netsai Marova	Zimbabwean government officers	Zimbabwe	unknown	Released	MDC members who were abducted for two days after an anti-government protest, where they were allegedly tortured and sexually abused by government officers.[255]
2 July 2020	Patricia Alatorre	Armando Cruz	Bakersfield, California, US	13	Murdered	Alatorre disappeared on July 1 around 11:30 p.m. near Hosking Avenue and Wible Road, with Bakersfield Police Department believing that Alatorre was a runaway until surveillance footage showed a white older model pickup truck at the area.[256][257] The police connected the pickup truck to 24-year old Armando Cruz from Inglewood, California, arresting him on July 5.[258][259][260]
3 March 2021	Sarah Everard	Wayne Couzens	London, England, UK	33	Murdered	Everard disappeared in South London while walking home to Brixton Hill.[261] Six days later, police officer Wayne Couzens was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and later murdering Everard.[262] Everard's remains were found in Hoad's Wood in a large builder's bag and identified via dental records.[263] Couzens pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping Everard,[264] and eventually admitted killing her.[265]
16 July 2021	Selsela Alikhil	Unknown	Islamabad, Pakistan	unknown	Released	Daughter of the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan who was forcefully abducted and tortured by an attacker who picked her up in his taxi. She was later released, and her case is currently under investigation.[266]
20 August 2021	Queen Bakomi	Unidentified kidnap gang	Balma, Adamawa State, Nigeria	Unknown	Rescued	On 20 August a gang of kidnappers stormed the residence of Bakomi Andarawus and killed him before abducting his daughter Queen. Queen was held for six days while the gang demanded two million naira in ransom. The kidnappers eventually conceded that this was an unrealistic amount and agreed to accept 170,000 in return for Queen's release. According to a police source, the kidnappers directed representatives of the family to take the money to a particular place in the bush for collection. However, a group of vigilantes who were lying in wait opened fire on the gang member who came to collect the ransom and killed him, rescuing Queen in the process.[267]
16 October 2021	Cleo Smith	Terence Darrell Kelly	Gascoyne, Australia	4	Rescued	Smith disappeared from her family's tent at a campsite, and remained missing for 18 days until 3 November. She was found alive by police at Kelly's house after mobile phone evidence determined that he had visited the campsite.[268]

Modern kidnappings of celebrities or their relatives[]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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:

• Leon Ames: Film and television actor who, together with his wife, was held hostage at their home on February 12, 1964. They were rescued by police, who had been alerted to the case by his business partner.^[269]
• Alex Band: Singer-songwriter best known as the guitarist for The Calling, Band was reportedly robbed, beaten and then abandoned near some train tracks by two unidentified assailants on August 18, 2013. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was treated and later released.^[270]
• 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.
• Chris Cramer: British news journalist and executive for BBC who was one of the 25 hostages held during the Iranian Embassy siege. Cramer was released on April 31, 1980, after falsely complaining that he felt ill, and later provided information on the situation.
• Einár: Swedish rapper who was kidnapped by gang members associated with rival rapper Yasin in April 2020. He was later released, but was killed the following year when he was scheduled to testify in the case.^[271]
• 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 after agreeing not to publicize the films. He was later 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 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 1 October 1996. The abductors demanded four million Deutsche Mark. Rainer and Sven Körppen, along with three others were arrested on 16 October. The body of Fiszman was found on 19 October in the Taunus mountains.

Faked kidnappings[]

• 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.^{[272][273][274]}
• Jules Croiset, Dutch actor who faked being kidnapped by neo-Nazis in 1987 in order to stir enough outrage to prevent a play he considered to be antisemitic from being performed.^[275]
• Joanna Grenside (1992), an aerobics teacher from Harpenden, England, who staged her disappearance to avoid Christmas.^{[clarification needed][274]}
• 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.
• Somália, Brazilian footballer who falsely claimed in 2011 that he had been kidnapped. It was proved that he was running late for a training session and tried to avoid a 40% wage cut for tardiness.^[276]
• Christopher Sellman (2021), a fraudster from Kent who sent pictures of himself in staged hostage situations to friends in order to extract ransom money.^[277]

Suspected kidnappings[]

• 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.^[278]
• , 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.^[279]
• , 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.^[280]
• Jimmy Hoffa, disappeared and declared legally dead. Several rumors and theories, including an alleged kidnapping, surfaced in later years.
• 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.^{[281][282][283][284][285][286]}
• Cédrika Provencher, 10-year-old girl from Trois-Rivières, Canada went missing on 31 July 2007. Her remains were discovered on 11 December 2015.^[287]
• Dru Sjodin, American college student, seems to have been abducted on 22 November 2003, and was found dead on 17 April 2004.^[288]

Kidnapping in lieu of extradition[]

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[]

• 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 officers.
• 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.^[289]
• 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping: 43 male students from a rural school in Mexico were planning to go to a protest in Mexico when they were shot at by police and taken into custody.^[290][291]
• 2015 Malari kidnapping: 40 boys and young men were kidnapped by Boko Haram.^[292]
• 2018 Dapchi kidnapping: 110 schoolchildren from their school were kidnapped by Boko Haram.^[293]
• 2020 Kankara kidnapping: 334 schoolchildren from their school were kidnapped by Boko Haram.^[294]
• 2021 Kagara kidnapping: 27 schoolchildren from their school were kidnapped and one killed, three members of the school's staff and 12 of their relatives were also abducted.^[295]
• 2021 Jangebe kidnapping: 279 schoolchildren from their school were kidnapped by armed bandits in Jangebe.^[296]
• 2021 Afaka kidnapping: 39 students (23 females and 16 males) were kidnapped by armed bandits in Afaka.^[297]

See also[]

• List of child abuse cases featuring long-term detention

References[]

External links[]

• Jett, Philip. The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1250111807