5 Missing People Who Turned Up Alive Part 3
In this video, FactFaction takes a look at five more people who were once missing, but
eventually turned up alive.
This list features a dementia sufferer, prolonged periods of captivity and some welcome happy
endings.
Elizabeth Smart
On June 4th, 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart went to bed as usual, in the home that she
shared with her parents and five siblings in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the early hours of the following morning, she was kidnapped by a man who illegally entered
her home.
She shared the room with her 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine, who disturbingly heard the
entire scene unfold while she pretended to be asleep.
Too scared to intervene, she was left to listen fearfully as she watched her sister get dragged
away.
In a statement which eerily described the crime, Mary Katherine told reporters that
the kidnapper, though armed with a knife, was softly-spoken, well-dressed, methodical
and even polite.
When Mary Katherine deemed it safe to leave her bed, she told her parents what had happened.
They initially believed that she was having a nightmare and searched the home for their
daughter.
Mary Katherine insisted, telling them ''You're not going to find her.
A man came and took her.
He had a knife.''
After realizing the truth, the family contacted the police, and a hunt for the kidnapper began,
with a bounty set at $250,000.
For four months, all searches led to false starts.
In October, Mary Katherine claimed that the voice she had heard during the kidnapping
was familiar to her.
The Smart family had a reputation for helping unemployed people by kindly allowing them
to work on jobs at their home.
One of these men, known to the family as Emmanuel, allegedly sounded just like the man who had
taken Elizabeth.
Police released an e-fit of this man to the public.
Shortly after the release of the sketch, police were contacted by a Mitchell family, who claimed
that this man was a member of their family, Brian David Mitchell.
After a hunt began, he was found traveling with Elizabeth Smart, who was disguised in
a grey wig, sunglasses, and a veil.
He was also accompanied by his wife, Wanda Barzee.
Officers questioned the group and recognized Elizabeth.
She had been with the pair for nine months.
Both Mitchell and Barzee were subsequently arrested.
During trials, Mitchell exhibited much strange behavior, with many professionals claiming
that he was unable to stand trial due to psychosis and other issues.
During one hearing, he screamed at a judge, compelling him to - Quote - ''forsake those
robes and kneel in the dust''.
Many of his claims and behaviors were related to his Christian religious fanaticism, which
he would often preach about on the street throughout his life.
After her release, Elizabeth revealed many disturbing details about her treatment.
In line with his odd beliefs, Mitchell would write his own scripture, and ask Elizabeth
to read it aloud.
He would also pray for the two to have sex, before raping her, sometimes numerous times
a day during the entire nine-month period.
Mitchell himself believed he was the chosen soldier to fight the anti-Christ.
For months, Elizabeth was kept in the woods near Salt Lake City, and repeatedly molested,
assaulted and treated like a slave.
On the day of her kidnapping, Elizabeth was forced to undergo a makeshift wedding ceremony,
becoming what Mitchell believed to be his second wife.
He allegedly hoped to gather a total of seven wives throughout his life.
Around 6 weeks after her kidnapping, in a conversation with Mitchell, Elizabeth mentioned
her 15-year-old cousin.
Mitchell later attempted to break into the cousin's home in order to kidnap her.
He failed to do so.
Elizabeth was often left chained to a tree for days without food.
For the majority of her ordeal, she lived with her kidnappers in the woods.
At one point during the nine months, she could hear her uncle calling out in one of his many
routine searches.
Terrified that Mitchell would harm her family as he'd so often claimed, she was too scared
to shout for his attention.
She would habitually avoid shouting for help, terrified of the consequences for her family.
On the rare occasions, they would go elsewhere, Elizabeth was made to wear a headscarf.
During one of these outings, in a city library, an officer who suspected that the scarfed
girl was Elizabeth approached Mitchell.
Mitchell managed to convince the officer that she was, in fact, his daughter.
In November 2009, Wanda Barzee was sentenced to 15 years for her role in the kidnapping.
Brian David Mitchell was handed a sentence of life without parole
Elizabeth is now happily married with two children of her own and often speaks publicly
about her ordeal.
Steve Carter
Adopted at four years old after being placed in an orphanage at the age of six months,
Steve Carter saw no need to hunt for his biological parents.
But when he found a picture on a missing children's website, he was shocked by what he found.
An estimated composite image of a missing child looked a lot like him.
This person, named Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes, had been missing for thirty-four years.
But now he was found.
And he had found himself.
After digging deeper, Steve discovered that he was, in fact, Marx himself, and had been
kidnapped by his own biological mother at only six months old.
She claimed to be heading to the store but never returned.
A sufferer of mental illness, this is the second time she had disappeared with her son.
The first time, she returned after a while.
On the second occasion, after three weeks, Steve's biological father filed a missing
person's report to no avail.
He also searched the island of Hawaii where the three lived, but could not find his missing
son.
Unknown to Steve's father, Steve's mother had taken their child to a stranger's home.
When authorities finally intervened, Steve was placed into care in a home only 50 kilometers
from where he'd lived with his parents.
His mother was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital.
She disappeared a few days later and has not been seen since.
Although Steve lived a happy and comfortable life with his adopted parents, he claims that
some details always aroused suspicion, including the fact that his birth certificate was created
when he was aged one year old.
After a DNA test confirming his identity, Steve called his older half-sister.
She admitted that she assumed her brother to be dead.
Despite this, she had optimistically encouraged police to continue the search, which led to
them posting images online.
Steve then found one of these images.
Had it not been for her insistence, Steve Carter would still be ignorant of his true
identity.
Jaycee Dugard
On June 10th, 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped while walking home from school.
Snatched from just outside her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, she spent 18 years
in captivity, renamed Allissa and held in a backyard shack at the rear of her captors'
home.
Her captors were Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist, and his wife Nancy.
They had transported her almost 200 kilometers, to their home in San Francisco.
In her almost two decades of captivity, Jaycee was repeatedly raped and tortured.
Immediately after kidnapping her, Garrido forced Dugard to take a shower with him.
She was wearing handcuffs, which she continued to wear for her first week with the pair.
Garrido later explained to Dugard that 'demon angels' had permitted him to take her, and
that she was there to help with his sexual problems.
He claimed to be a servant of God.
He also kept a religious blog and insisted that he was able to control sound with his
mind.
During methamphetamine binges, Garrido would make Jaycee attempt to listen for the voices
he could hear in his head.
He would dress Jaycee up and make her cut images out of pornographic magazines.
Garrido and his wife, on two occasions, gave kittens to Jaycee, which then disappeared
without explanation.
Jaycee was not permitted to write or say her name during the majority of her ordeal.
Around three years into her captivity, Jaycee was freed from her handcuffs but continued
to be kept in a bolted room.
She was informed that she may be pregnant.
She gave birth to one child at the age of 14, and another at the age of 17.
Both were the result of Garrido's repeated rapes.
Garrido instructed Jaycee to tell her daughters that they were, in fact, her younger siblings,
and all three were to refer to Nancy as their mother.
Jaycee kept herself busy during the rest of her captivity by caring for her daughters.
Though their living quarters changed throughout the years, they spent most of their time living
in an area in the backyard, consisting of sheds, tents and a high fence.
One of these sheds was soundproofed, and used by Garrido to write, sing and record religious
songs and romantic country tracks.
In August 2009, over 18 years after kidnapping Jaycee, Garrido visited an FBI office with
a four-page essay, claiming he had unlocked the secrets to helping people who were tempted
by sex crimes.
On the same day, he visited a University of California office, accompanied by Jaycee's
two daughters.
He requested to hold a special religious event about his findings.
Their suspicion arose, and police got involved before discovering Jaycee and her daughters.
When first questioned, Jaycee claimed to be on the run from a fictional husband, claiming
that Garrido was her savior.
She maintained her false identity as Allissa, telling officers that Garrido was a 'changed
man' in spite of his previous sex offense convictions.
She also told officers that Garrido was 'good with her kids.'
After further questioning, the truth became apparent.
After his arrest, Garrido has continued to insist that he is a changed man, writing many
documents relating to the rehabilitation of schizophrenics.
Claiming that his previous actions were ''disgusting,'' he has told reporters that the rescue of Jaycee
is a ''powerful, heart-warming story''.
Both Nancy and Phillip Garrido were sentenced to life.
Jaycee continues to raise her daughters, who, so indoctrinated by their entrapment, cried
when they heard of their father's arrest.
Jaycee and her story have been the subject of many documentaries and two autobiographies.
Gregory Jean Jr
When 9-year-old Gregory Jean Jr visited his Atlanta-based father in 2010, he never returned.
His mother declared him missing, but child services were unsure of where to look.
They did not inform police of the disappearance.
The mother too refused to notify police, seemingly because she was afraid to do so.
Believed to be an immigrant from Haiti, she may have been fearing potential deportation
in the event of contacting police.
Gregory was later discovered, hidden behind a false wall in a cupboard of the home he
come to visit four years earlier.
For the entire duration, he had been held captive by his father and stepmother and treated
like a slave.
He was forced to clean the house and the yard and was routinely beaten with a stick.
Though his initial treatment was not too shocking, the situation progressively became worse.
The pair allegedly kept Gregory in order to avoid having to pay child support.
Aged thirteen upon his discovery, he told reporters - quote: ''Any little thing and
I would get a whopping [...] [My stepmother made me] write out words from the dictionary
in a school book every morning.
And if I did not finish the words before 8.45 I would not get any food for breakfast.
And if I had not finished by 12.00 I would not get anything to eat for lunch.''
Gregory was forced to sleep in the garage with only a thin blanket while his step-siblings
enjoyed a normal and comfortable life inside the family home.
He was also banned from celebrating Christmas as a punishment for talking.
He was starved, beaten and humiliated, and often forced to use a bucket as a toilet.
Allegedly, the family would often watch him defecate.
On another occasion, he was stripped naked and forced to wear a diaper.
He claims to have cried almost every night but kept faith that he would be rescued by
his mother.
Gregory managed to save himself by sending a Facebook friend request to his mom, which
alerted her to his whereabouts.
He was then able to call his mother, who contacted police.
Gregory's father and stepmother were charged with child cruelty and false imprisonment, but Gregory
begged for mercy on their behalf, telling reporters ''I just want to be free to live
my life and let them live theirs.''
Gregory is now living happily with his mother again.
Robert McDonough
When 73-year-old Robert McDonough went missing from his Maine home in May 2013, searches
began almost immediately.
The man, who suffers from dementia, could not be located in searches of the nearby woods,
which included sniffer dogs and an infrared helicopter.
Fourteen hours later, a news team were ready to report upon his disappearance in the hope
that members of the public might be able to help.
Just before filming began, a man casually approached the crew, with his hands in his
pockets.
Unbelievably, this man was Robert himself.
He began to talk with reporters, confirming his identity.
In the video, he tells officers that he is not hurt, and instead feels safe and well.
It is believed that he wandered into the woods and got lost before finally returning the
next day.
Robert has no memory of why he left his home or where he slept.
An unidentified family member has said that the family are considering giving him a GPS
tracker in order to find him if he walks off again.
Authorities claim that they were confident of finding him eventually, though Robert himself
saved them from having to do so.
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