They Took Our Child: We Got Her Back (2015–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Jessyca - full transcript
13-year-old Pittsburgh girl
reported missing
New Year's Day.
- He was so scary.
I knew immediately
I was in danger.
- I watched my house
and my family fade away.
I was this person's prisoner.
- We listened to the clock,
and it seemed that
it was ticking away
the seconds of
my daughter's life.
- Police have no hard leads
into the disappearance of 13-year-old Alicia Kozakiewicz.
- The game starts to be over,
that's when the terror begins.
- And said, "Well, it looks like
we're gonna have to take this
into our own hands."
- This is a sad,
troubling case.
but as always,
there is still hope.
- I knew that my parents were
going to figure this out.
My goal was to stay alive.
- I was being rescued,
it felt like a miracle.
- The door opened,
then I seen my daughter.
It was the most comforting
feeling you could ever have.
- Growing up, I was very shy.
I was maybe the kind of child
who didn't want to disrupt
people or bother people.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom
and was always at
school field trips
and helping out with
the projects
and was very involved
in my life.
- I was lucky enough to be
a stay-at-home mom.
My husband worked
12 hours a day, 6 days a week
to afford me that luxury.
And I always felt that
it was important
to be there with my children.
It's important for families to
spend as much time together
as they can.
- At 13, I feel like we--
we think we know a lot
and that we're kind of
little adults.
I think that's the point where
we're like,
we-- we got the world,
we understand it.
Mom knows nothing.
Dad knows nothing.
And I was kind of
a kid like that in some ways,
but also, I was so naive.
I was a very gullible,
trusting child.
- In 2001, the internet was
very different.
It was really a time when
my friends stopped wanting to
go outside.
They wanted to stay indoors
and be online.
So in order to maintain
my friendships
I realized that I had to get
a screen name
and talk to them online.
And I can remember that
we would be in a chat room
together talking,
and they would introduce me to
their friends
and their friends
and their friends,
and it just felt so safe.
I had met this boy online.
He was interested in
the same things that I was,
which at the time was áNSYNC
and Backstreet Boys
and Spice Girls and, like,
the movie "Titanic."
And I did think that maybe
he could be my boyfriend.
He kind of became my everything.
He became my best friend,
my confidant,
and he made me feel beautiful
and important and special
and unique.
It's hard to be a kid.
Sometimes you don't feel
smart enough,
pretty enough.
He made me feel like
I was enough.
I thought that he was somebody
around my age.
He was a kid in my mind.
Looking back, I know that
he immediately began
the grooming process
and started working to
gain my trust.
- Grooming is when you talk to
a predator
and all of the insecurities that
a 13 year old thinks they have,
they tell them that 's okay.
They tell them that
they look beautiful.
They tell them that
their mom and dad are wrong.
They tell them exactly what
they want to hear.
That's grooming.
- He groomed me for a period of
over eight months.
- New Year's Day 2002 was
a very special holiday.
It's the big pork
and sauerkraut kielbasa day.
We spent the day with
the roasting and the baking
and Alicia set the table that
day and she helped me cook.
- And we had a beautiful meal
my wife prepared,
because, believe it or not,
she's an excellent cook.
It was a wonderful holiday.
- It was just
a really nice meal.
We would actually have it
for good luck.
It was our good luck meal.
On January 1, 2002,
he and I had planned to meet.
I was excited and-- and nervous
to meet this person.
- At the end of dinner
as we were clearing the table
for dessert,
Alicia asked if she could
go to her room
and lie down for
a couple of minutes
because she didn't feel well.
So, of course, we said,
fine, you're excused.
- I told my mom that
I had a stomachache
so that I could step outside
to meet who I thought was
my best friend in the world.
I got up and I can remember
walking past the Christmas tree
and opening the door
and walking out.
I thought we were just going to
say hi very quickly
and then he would
continue on his way.
It was really cold,
and there was quite a bit of
snow just covering the ground,
and it was very windy.
I can remember
walking up the street
just about a block,
not far from my house.
I didn't even see the car.
I heard my name being called,
and I-I don't know how
I got into that car.
I don't know if he opened
the door and grabbed me
and dragged me in.
All I know is I was in the car,
and there was
this really scary man
who was holding my hand
so tightly that
I thought it was broken.
In this threatening way
saying,
"I will hurt you."
I knew immediately
I was in danger.
I was so scared and so confused.
I watched my house fade away
and my family was
all of a sudden gone.
I was this person's prisoner.
- As we were clearing dishes,
my son went up to
call Alicia down for dessert,
and she didn't answer,
so he went up to her room.
- And then he came down
the stairs and said,
"She's gone."
And your first impression is,
she's hiding.
She's somewhere.
And you think that,
and after a while,
it starts to turn into
a not so comfortable feeling
because the game starts
to be over.
That's when the terror begins.
- You know,
then we started to panic
and I called 911.
- They came,
spent some time with us,
wrote a few things down,
and did a report
and said,
"We'll get back to you."
- Well, initially when
the call was
first called in to
the police department,
it was handled as though it was
a runaway child,
because ultimately,
most of these cases start out
with a runaway child.
They're mad at their mom and dad
or they're going out to see
friends or something like that.
- It is the most frustrating
thing in the world
when you know something is wrong
and it doesn't seem as if
other people feel that way.
- When the Pittsburgh police
department get a call that
a child's missing,
they do take it very seriously.
But they can't look at
every runaway child
as though it's a missing person
and throw all our resources
at it.
They have to use
some common sense
as we work these cases.
- There was nothing missing.
She had money that
she'd gotten for Christmas
that was still strewn across
her dresser, a coat.
It was unusual weather
even for Pittsburgh.
It was bitter.
You would go out and the wind
would just bite your face.
Why would somebody go out
into that cold without a coat?
- It was so out of character,
it's unbelievable.
There's absolutely no way that
Alicia was a runaway.
- At that point in time,
luckily I was unaware,
that stranger-abducted children
are quite often murdered within
the first few hours.
- I had no idea where
he was taking me.
And I can remember
street signs zooming past
and trying to remember them,
and there seemed to be
so many chances to get away.
There were stoplights,
stop signs.
I'd try to jump out
of the window,
but I didn't have the courage.
And then all of the chances
just quickly fade away.
It was terrifying.
And then we hit a tollbooth
and he commanded that
I be quiet.
And I kind of remember thinking,
there's somebody right there.
Are they gonna notice me?
I'm-- I'm crying.
I'm clearly in distress.
Are they gonna
pay any attention?
And they didn't.
They just went right through.
I had no idea what he had
planned to do to me
or where he was even taking me.
It's about a 5-hour drive from
my Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
home
to the Virginia house
where he took me.
I can remember him taking me
into this house
and he made me walk down
a flight of stairs.
And then I knew we were
underground in a basement.
And I saw different devices,
I guess you could call them,
on the wall.
And there was this padded table
in the center of this room,
and he removed my clothing
and he propped me up
on this table,
and he said, "It's okay to cry.
This is gonna be
really hard for you."
- The first night is
definitely tough.
There's no way that
I could sleep
because I felt if I slept,
I might miss something,
just a little detail.
- We don't know what to do.
You know, once you've
called the police,
what is there to do?
So we just sat there
and we listened to the clock,
and it seemed that it was
ticking away
the seconds of
my daughter's life.
- After the police did
their investigation at my home
the night Alicia disappeared,
their thought was that she was
quite possibly a runaway.
They said, "Well, maybe
she'll be home by morning."
I mean, that was their thought,
and I guess it was meant to be
uplifting and hopeful,
but it was just more terrifying.
A friend of mine called me
and said,
"Is she home yet?"
And I said, "No."
And I started to cry
so she rushed over to my home
and she said,
"Well, it looks like
"we're gonna have to take this
into our own hands
since you haven't heard
anything."
And we started to research
the phone book
and, thank God, one of
the numbers that we came upon
was the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children.
So I called them,
and immediately
they took the information
and they told me,
just send a picture,
so that they could
place it online.
They told me that
within the next day
I would be getting a packet with
"missing" posters that
I could disseminate.
- National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children
was started in 1984
as the need for a clearing house
for missing children grew.
- I remember speaking to
Alicia's mom
on the 2nd of January.
The picture of Alicia was
put up on our website
within 24 hours,
no time was wasted.
- They were very quick,
and that was so important
because that sort of gave us
a little bit of hope that
somebody would see her there.
- When I woke up
the next morning,
he had taken me upstairs
to his bedroom,
and he grabbed
what was a dog collar,
and he put it on my neck.
And then he grabbed a padlock
and he locked it on there.
And he picked up
this heavy chain
and he attached it to
the dog collar,
and he raped me.
I was so helpless and so broken,
and this man was so big
and overpowering
and disgusting.
I felt everything that
I loved and cared about
was just gone.
He'd taken everything.
- My dad is the warden of
Allegheny County,
and he did a lot of backdoor
things to help.
- My father-in-law,
he had connections,
and he was able to
place some calls.
And so we had the FBI in
our living room
within 24 hours.
- We went to her house
and we talked to mom and dad,
and they were telling us that
Alicia was a really good kid
and would never just walk away.
And they have a computer
in her room,
but they're sure she's not doing
anything on it
and nothing was wrong.
So then we went to her school
and got
a drastically different story.
Her friends are telling us
she's on the computer a lot.
She's on the computer till
late at night,
halfway through the night.
Her grades are failing.
She's very tired at school.
We did find out about
a boyfriend.
So now it rises
our level concern.
Okay, what is she doing?
What is happening?
Did she meet somebody
on the computer?
We never worked a case like that
before.
We were in very strange
territory
we hadn't been in before.
- They came to our house
and immediately took
the computer.
At that point, I said,
this is a little more serious.
This is something different.
- I've lived in Pittsburgh
most of my life.
Crafton Heights is
a safe community.
It's a suburb of Pittsburgh.
- It was typical middle class,
not the part of town where
you would see something like
this happening.
- The fact that she may have
been abducted
by somebody she met
on the internet,
it likely was the first story
locally
that we had ever dealt with.
The internet was so new
that we didn't know,
what does this mean?
It's really frightening that
in our community she may have
been lured by somebody
she had contact with
on the internet.
- The second day,
I cried myself into
some sort of stupor
where I was half asleep,
half awake.
And I was quickly brought back
to awareness
to him on top of me
just punching me
all over my body
and being chained
and screaming out in pain.
And it was at this point that
I really tried to fight back,
and he broke my nose.
And I could remember
wanting to scream
and cry and be very emotional,
but also that
that's what he wanted,
and I didn't want to
give that to him.
I was so scared
and so far from home
and felt like
I could never be found here
in the middle of nowhere
with this terrifying monster.
I knew that my parents were
going to figure this out.
The question was, would they
figure it out quickly enough?
- It wasn't until 2003
that more than 50%
of America's homes
had an internet connection.
So at the time
Alicia's case came in
she was in the minority.
- We all know about stranger
danger and evil predators,
but to think that somebody could
reach across the web
and-- and grab your child,
that was new.
Nobody had heard of that.
It was still urban legend.
- My wife was staying strong at
the worst times
because she was relentless.
As things got more serious,
Mary decided she's gonna stay on
the phone, she's gonna do this.
It was every single minute.
I basically couldn't even
talk to her.
You know, people were
trying to feed us.
She wouldn't eat.
I wouldn't eat.
- I don't know where
my child is.
I don't know what
she's enduring.
I can't eat
because she's not eating.
I mean, how can I eat?
How-- how can I sleep?
How can I--
how can I do anything
when I don't know where
my child is?
- You don't believe
this can happen.
It doesn't happen to
good people.
It's-- it's-- no, no.
It actually can happen to
anybody.
- It happens
because predators are evil,
and the internet has
created a tool
that gives them easy
and quick access
to the vulnerable.
So it can happen.
- My hands are bound
above my head,
and I'm covered in bruises,
and I'm being beaten.
While this man held me captive,
he broadcasted himself
abusing me
to other people online, live.
I had no idea
I was being filmed.
Being chained and knowing
you can't go anywhere
even when you can see a door,
it makes you feel...
so helpless.
Throughout my captivity,
I did whatever I had to do
to survive.
No matter how humiliating
or painful or disgusting,
I did it.
- The second day there was
quite a few fears.
With the weather conditions
the way they were
and Alicia without the coat
and without any kind of money
or anything,
you were always worried about
her being alive.
- It's terrifying when you think
that you can be doing everything
that you think is correct,
you can be right there
with your kids all the time,
and you still really don't have
control over the circumstances
in their lives.
My daughter being missing
was hell.
It was pure hell.
- For cases like Alicia's,
the urgency is very high.
There are people out there that
have bad intentions,
who are seeking to use
our children.
Everybody who works on cases of
missing children knows that
the moment that child leaves
their home
they're in harm's way.
- The biggest fear was that
we would not find her alive.
Over the years,
we've worked kidnapping cases
and the child is murdered.
So my fear was that
we wouldn't find her,
and if we did find her, it
would be that she was murdered.
- Alicia's poster was posted on
the website
for the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children
within 24 hours.
- Immediately they said,
"Get these posters out.
"Get Alicia's picture
everywhere you can.
"Get some recognition out there.
"You need to do this right away,
"because the longer you wait,
who knows what can happen."
- There was no community
involvement whatsoever.
There were no candles.
There were no vigils.
There were a few neighbors,
a few friends,
that put up some posters.
People didn't want to
get involved.
They would ask me, "Couldn't you
have stopped it?"
In fact, I had a whole community
that felt that
I could have stopped it
and that it was my fault.
And it was very hard to explain
because no one had
ever heard of grooming.
How do you explain to people
who are totally ignorant
of the term
that your child was
basically brainwashed?
They don't want to believe that,
so they tended to vilify us,
and that's very difficult.
There were a few neighbors,
a few friends,
that put up some posters
and who came to my house.
But, I mean, basically,
other than those few people,
we were totally alone.
But I had to stay strong.
I had to stay strong for her.
- The timing of this was
right after New Year's,
so it was a holiday break,
so he was home much of the time.
On the third day,
he'd taken me down
into that dungeon
and strapped my hands above me
and just started hitting me.
It felt like
it would never stop,
it would never end.
At times, I was chained
in the basement
and there was only inches
I could move.
I did think about escaping
but I was always chained.
The keys he kept on a wall that
was just out of reach.
And it was almost a sick game
that I could see them,
that if I could reach
those keys,
I could maybe get out of this.
But I couldn't,
and I started to lose that hope.
So pretty much from that point,
I thought he would very likely
just--
he'd end my life.
- As we were days into this,
it was harder and harder to
maintain hope.
- The longer this went on,
the likelihood of them
recovering Alicia alive
lessened.
- We did find information on
Alicia's computer.
It was pretty typical
teenage angst.
I'm miserable.
I'm unhappy with this.
My parents are mean.
Maybe a young girl trying to
get some attention,
not realizing
the dangers behind it.
These are tough cases to work,
because we're dealing with
the most vulnerable population,
somebody that cannot help
themselves.
So we need to up our game here
and-- and bring her home
as soon as we can.
- We were three days in.
The woman from Team HOPE
called me.
Team HOPE is comprised of
parents whose children
have been abducted.
And what she had said to me was,
"You're three days in.
"That's a long time.
"Your best chance of
seeing your daughter alive
"is to get her face out there.
Somebody somewhere
has to have seen her."
I go to the FBI and I ask them,
could the media become involved?
And their answer was,
I don't see why not.
I don't think we have anything
to lose at this point.
Like, how do you hear that?
There's just no words that
convey that--
that agony.
- When I first heard about
Alicia's disappearance,
we got notification that
there was a missing teenager.
At that time,
I probably only had done
maybe one or two other stories
about the internet,
about the dangers of them.
This was all very new to us.
- When there's a search
going on,
law enforcement does not inform
you of what they're doing,
so we were frustrated.
We didn't know
if they knew anything,
and they weren't sharing it.
- We can't tell,
not only the family,
but the public
what techniques we're using
and everything we're doing.
And it's upsetting to know
everything that we're doing.
You know, "What do you mean you
have dogs looking in this area?"
I mean, why put them
through that
if ultimately that
doesn't turn out?
Hope is the single most
important emotion you can have
when you're going through
something truly awful.
I knew my parents were
looking for me.
I knew that they loved me
and that--
that love is what kept me going.
The fact that I knew my parents
were searching,
and if we were both doing what
we needed to do,
if I were staying alive
and they were searching,
then I would be rescued.
- I personally went down to
our local paper
and made sure this picture was
in the paper.
You have to keep your nose to
the grindstone
and keep pushing forward.
This is very important that
you do that.
Because the media can be
a very good friend
in this situation,
and the farther you can get
her picture out,
the better the results might be.
It's-- it's-- If you do nothing,
you get nothing.
You have to get out there
and do something,
because seconds are
very important,
very important.
I had a lot of regrets.
Being a father,
you have to secure your family,
secure your home.
I felt guilty.
I didn't protect my little girl.
- I wasn't able to keep track of
how much time had passed,
how long I had been chained to
this floor.
He grabbed me by my chin
and looked me in the eye
and said, "I'm beginning to
like you too much.
Tonight we're going to go
for a ride."
And I absolutely took that as
he's gonna kill me.
This was my last chance.
Today is the day that
I'm going to fight
and do whatever I can do
to get away.
And then I realized
it's probably not gonna work.
I'd already tried to fight him.
I'd already lost.
He'd already overpowered me
so many times.
So I started to accept
my own death,
and I started to lose that hope.
- As the investigation unfolded,
I had a ton of people
assisting me.
We didn't even go home.
We stayed in the office
and just slept in the office.
But there weren't
a lot of crazy leads,
and we had put
a lot of faith into
the computer forensic examiner
to try to find something
on the computer.
We had no idea.
We don't know where she's at.
We don't know who she's with,
if she's still alive.
We were three days in,
it was in the middle of the
night, then we got a big break.
- The big break we got
in this case was when
we got a call from
an anonymous source in Florida.
This individual
knew somebody online
and this friend
had told him that
he was going to travel
and get a young girl.
This guy put two and two
together
and he started looking through
the papers at that time
and saw there was a young girl
missing out of Pittsburgh.
So then he contacted the FBI,
and he gave us the screen name.
That lead us to a Yahoo!
account.
And at that point,
we got on Yahoo! ourselves
and we were shocked at
what we saw.
He seems to have
this serious interest in BDSM,
and he had very distinct
sexual desires,
and that was alarming.
- The man who was holding
my daughter,
he shared his torment
and abuse of her
online in streaming video
with a number of cronies
across the world.
And one man in Florida saw it.
He didn't want to be an
accomplice
so he called the FBI,
and they told me that, you know,
we don't know a lot
but your daughter is somewhere
being held in a dungeon
by somebody.
She's naked.
She's been tortured.
And if he knows
you're looking for her,
he's gonna put her in a box.
It was terrifying.
It was absolutely terrifying.
- Through our investigation,
we identified a name
and an address for Scott Tyree,
and he was 38 years old,
living in Virginia.
So we contacted
our Washington field office
to hopefully find Alicia.
- On the fourth day,
he left for work.
You know, I didn't know
if I was truly alone.
I thought that this was a game,
that he may have
just been standing
right outside of the door
waiting to hear me scream.
So my goal that day was
to stay alive.
Hours had passed.
At this point,
he had me chained to the bed,
and I heard this banging.
- And then there were voices,
and they sounded angry.
And I thought that he had
sent somebody to kill me.
So I rolled off of the bed
and hid underneath it.
Next thing I knew,
a man had come to
the other side of the bed
and he commanded that I crawl
out from underneath the bed.
And I crawled out and I looked
into the barrel of a gun.
And then he turned around
and I saw "FBI"
on the back of his jacket.
All of these agents rushed in
and I knew I was being rescued.
It felt like a miracle.
- There was at least
50 people in my office,
and when they told us they found
her and she was alive,
it was a cheer.
The whole office was cheering,
'cause we were all just
so relieved that on our watch
she was found alive.
- At approximately
3:30 pm this afternoon,
Alicia Kozakiewicz was rescued
by agents of
the FBI's Washington
field office.
At this point,
it appears that Alicia has
no life-threatening injury,
however she has been taken to
a hospital
for further examination.
- They took a lot of pictures
in the hospital
and they did their examination,
and then they gave me
a bag of clothes,
a little care package.
I was so traumatized that
I just wanted to come home,
and I wanted to know where
my parents were.
- My husband got a phone call,
"We need you down here
immediately."
- "Alicia was found."
We didn't hear if she was okay,
and we didn't realize
what it was.
- To me, when he said that,
I thought that we were going to
identify a body.
So we walk into a room,
and the one woman
who had been running
the investigation,
she starts saying something
about, she's in this,
or she's there,
and I really wasn't catching it.
And I looked up and I said,
"So you know where she is?"
And she goes,
"Yeah, we have her.
"She's in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital,
but she's okay."
And that's when the sunlight
just burst in.
- My wife and I, at that point,
were just overjoyed.
- Our protocol is, of course,
take her to a hospital.
So the FBI flew the parents
to Virginia to meet with her.
- They put us in a room,
and I seen a door open.
Then I seen my daughter.
She wasn't in perfect condition.
- My dad ran up to me
and he gave me this hug.
- This hug was so deep
and so important.
It was the most comforting
feeling
that you could ever have.
- One of the agents said that
in 16 years,
this is the first day that
he wasn't pulling a body
from the ground.
- When Alicia was located,
it was
an incredible feeling that
she made it out alive.
Knowing that Alicia's photo was
on our website,
that somebody out there
saw the picture
and called in a tip,
saved her life,
it certainly feels good
to know that
someone is alive today
because of your efforts.
- A 13-year-old Pittsburgh
girl, back home today
after falling victim to
a sexual predator.
- Once Alicia was rescued,
the investigation shifted to
finding Scott Tyree.
tic music]
- Once agents went into
Scott Tyree's house
and found Alicia
and realized that Scott Tyree
was not home,
then they immediately went to
Scott Tyree's work,
and he was arrested without
any kind of conflict at all.
- After Alicia was rescued,
we found out the kind of person
that Scott Tyree was.
He had been trolling
the internet
looking for teenage girls
willing to be dominated
and owned by him.
He had whips and chains
and paddles
and other instruments used in
sadomasochistic sex.
- Scott Tyree did plead guilty,
and he received 19 years
and 7 months in federal prison.
- It took me about five years
to really forgive myself.
I was a 13-year-old kid,
and kids make mistakes,
and no adult should ever take
advantage of a child's mistake.
After something like this
happens to you,
you realize that there is
real evil in this world.
There are people out there
who intend to harm others
and get gratification from it.
So my family and I vowed that
we would do everything
in our power
to work to make sure that this
did not happen to another child.
I started going into schools
and talking with kids,
really trying to get across that
if this can happen to me,
it can happen to you.
I am currently working getting
Alicia's Law passed
in all 50 states.
It's currently passed
in nine states.
Alicia's Law funds
the Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Forces,
like the group that
helped to rescue me.
So it's just this constant
stream of funding for them
so that they can get
the training, the resources,
the boots on the ground
to go out and rescue children.
There are so many young girls
whose stories will
never be heard.
When I speak,
what I say is for all of us
who exist in pain and fear
and sometimes even shame.
Please support the children.
Save us from pedophiles.
Thank you.
When I was missing,
I thought about,
when was the last time
I told you guys
that I loved you?
It's so important to let people
in your life know
that you love them,
because you never know
when they're just going to
go away.
- Alicia,
we feel that love.
And thank you for saying it,
and thank you for loving us.
But we equally
love you.
- I love you.
- I love you more.
- The last time I saw Alicia was
at a conference,
and she was a presenter.
She was only 17.
It was kind of a big deal,
because you don't often get to
meet survivors.
So it was really important to
make a face-to-face connection
with somebody that
you've helped.
So it'll be real exciting to
reconnect after all this time.
- Hey.
- Hi!
- There she is.
- Here I am. Hi!
- Here you are.
- So nice to see you.
- I was asked when
I saw you last.
I had to kind of go
back in time a little bit.
It was the Hand in Hand
conference,
and I think you were 17.
- Wow.
- It was 2005.
I remember just thinking,
my gosh,
she's so young
and she's up here.
And she's speaking
and doing such a great job.
- So I've been sharing
my story now for 13 years.
- Wow.
Like, that's
a long, long time.
- That's incredible.
- But a lot of good has
come out of it.
- When we discovered that
you had been found,
it was an amazing feeling,
because even though
nothing good happened
in the time that
you were held,
you can't compare
the joy that--
that comes with--
with knowing that
the bad guy lost.
- Right,
and I got to go home.
- That's it, absolutely.
- I'm just so thankful
for the work that
you did
and law enforcement does,
because without it,
I would not be here.
I know in my heart,
I would not be here.
- To survive an ordeal
like the one Alicia endured
takes courage
and a lot of strength.
The fact that she continually
seeks to help others
through her experience
just speaks to that bravery
and strength.
- The very fact that
she speaks out
about something so traumatic
that happened to her
half her life ago
is nothing short of--
of commendable.
The legacy of this story is that
we did learn more about
internet predators.
- A common saying is that
things happen for a reason.
But bad things don't happen in
our life for a reason.
Instead, we can make a purpose
out of the chaos,
and that's what I've been doing
working to ensure that
another child
does not have to endure
this pain.
- It was a miracle.
We were blessed.
That monster,
he took my child.
He stole my baby,
but we got her back.
reported missing
New Year's Day.
- He was so scary.
I knew immediately
I was in danger.
- I watched my house
and my family fade away.
I was this person's prisoner.
- We listened to the clock,
and it seemed that
it was ticking away
the seconds of
my daughter's life.
- Police have no hard leads
into the disappearance of 13-year-old Alicia Kozakiewicz.
- The game starts to be over,
that's when the terror begins.
- And said, "Well, it looks like
we're gonna have to take this
into our own hands."
- This is a sad,
troubling case.
but as always,
there is still hope.
- I knew that my parents were
going to figure this out.
My goal was to stay alive.
- I was being rescued,
it felt like a miracle.
- The door opened,
then I seen my daughter.
It was the most comforting
feeling you could ever have.
- Growing up, I was very shy.
I was maybe the kind of child
who didn't want to disrupt
people or bother people.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom
and was always at
school field trips
and helping out with
the projects
and was very involved
in my life.
- I was lucky enough to be
a stay-at-home mom.
My husband worked
12 hours a day, 6 days a week
to afford me that luxury.
And I always felt that
it was important
to be there with my children.
It's important for families to
spend as much time together
as they can.
- At 13, I feel like we--
we think we know a lot
and that we're kind of
little adults.
I think that's the point where
we're like,
we-- we got the world,
we understand it.
Mom knows nothing.
Dad knows nothing.
And I was kind of
a kid like that in some ways,
but also, I was so naive.
I was a very gullible,
trusting child.
- In 2001, the internet was
very different.
It was really a time when
my friends stopped wanting to
go outside.
They wanted to stay indoors
and be online.
So in order to maintain
my friendships
I realized that I had to get
a screen name
and talk to them online.
And I can remember that
we would be in a chat room
together talking,
and they would introduce me to
their friends
and their friends
and their friends,
and it just felt so safe.
I had met this boy online.
He was interested in
the same things that I was,
which at the time was áNSYNC
and Backstreet Boys
and Spice Girls and, like,
the movie "Titanic."
And I did think that maybe
he could be my boyfriend.
He kind of became my everything.
He became my best friend,
my confidant,
and he made me feel beautiful
and important and special
and unique.
It's hard to be a kid.
Sometimes you don't feel
smart enough,
pretty enough.
He made me feel like
I was enough.
I thought that he was somebody
around my age.
He was a kid in my mind.
Looking back, I know that
he immediately began
the grooming process
and started working to
gain my trust.
- Grooming is when you talk to
a predator
and all of the insecurities that
a 13 year old thinks they have,
they tell them that 's okay.
They tell them that
they look beautiful.
They tell them that
their mom and dad are wrong.
They tell them exactly what
they want to hear.
That's grooming.
- He groomed me for a period of
over eight months.
- New Year's Day 2002 was
a very special holiday.
It's the big pork
and sauerkraut kielbasa day.
We spent the day with
the roasting and the baking
and Alicia set the table that
day and she helped me cook.
- And we had a beautiful meal
my wife prepared,
because, believe it or not,
she's an excellent cook.
It was a wonderful holiday.
- It was just
a really nice meal.
We would actually have it
for good luck.
It was our good luck meal.
On January 1, 2002,
he and I had planned to meet.
I was excited and-- and nervous
to meet this person.
- At the end of dinner
as we were clearing the table
for dessert,
Alicia asked if she could
go to her room
and lie down for
a couple of minutes
because she didn't feel well.
So, of course, we said,
fine, you're excused.
- I told my mom that
I had a stomachache
so that I could step outside
to meet who I thought was
my best friend in the world.
I got up and I can remember
walking past the Christmas tree
and opening the door
and walking out.
I thought we were just going to
say hi very quickly
and then he would
continue on his way.
It was really cold,
and there was quite a bit of
snow just covering the ground,
and it was very windy.
I can remember
walking up the street
just about a block,
not far from my house.
I didn't even see the car.
I heard my name being called,
and I-I don't know how
I got into that car.
I don't know if he opened
the door and grabbed me
and dragged me in.
All I know is I was in the car,
and there was
this really scary man
who was holding my hand
so tightly that
I thought it was broken.
In this threatening way
saying,
"I will hurt you."
I knew immediately
I was in danger.
I was so scared and so confused.
I watched my house fade away
and my family was
all of a sudden gone.
I was this person's prisoner.
- As we were clearing dishes,
my son went up to
call Alicia down for dessert,
and she didn't answer,
so he went up to her room.
- And then he came down
the stairs and said,
"She's gone."
And your first impression is,
she's hiding.
She's somewhere.
And you think that,
and after a while,
it starts to turn into
a not so comfortable feeling
because the game starts
to be over.
That's when the terror begins.
- You know,
then we started to panic
and I called 911.
- They came,
spent some time with us,
wrote a few things down,
and did a report
and said,
"We'll get back to you."
- Well, initially when
the call was
first called in to
the police department,
it was handled as though it was
a runaway child,
because ultimately,
most of these cases start out
with a runaway child.
They're mad at their mom and dad
or they're going out to see
friends or something like that.
- It is the most frustrating
thing in the world
when you know something is wrong
and it doesn't seem as if
other people feel that way.
- When the Pittsburgh police
department get a call that
a child's missing,
they do take it very seriously.
But they can't look at
every runaway child
as though it's a missing person
and throw all our resources
at it.
They have to use
some common sense
as we work these cases.
- There was nothing missing.
She had money that
she'd gotten for Christmas
that was still strewn across
her dresser, a coat.
It was unusual weather
even for Pittsburgh.
It was bitter.
You would go out and the wind
would just bite your face.
Why would somebody go out
into that cold without a coat?
- It was so out of character,
it's unbelievable.
There's absolutely no way that
Alicia was a runaway.
- At that point in time,
luckily I was unaware,
that stranger-abducted children
are quite often murdered within
the first few hours.
- I had no idea where
he was taking me.
And I can remember
street signs zooming past
and trying to remember them,
and there seemed to be
so many chances to get away.
There were stoplights,
stop signs.
I'd try to jump out
of the window,
but I didn't have the courage.
And then all of the chances
just quickly fade away.
It was terrifying.
And then we hit a tollbooth
and he commanded that
I be quiet.
And I kind of remember thinking,
there's somebody right there.
Are they gonna notice me?
I'm-- I'm crying.
I'm clearly in distress.
Are they gonna
pay any attention?
And they didn't.
They just went right through.
I had no idea what he had
planned to do to me
or where he was even taking me.
It's about a 5-hour drive from
my Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
home
to the Virginia house
where he took me.
I can remember him taking me
into this house
and he made me walk down
a flight of stairs.
And then I knew we were
underground in a basement.
And I saw different devices,
I guess you could call them,
on the wall.
And there was this padded table
in the center of this room,
and he removed my clothing
and he propped me up
on this table,
and he said, "It's okay to cry.
This is gonna be
really hard for you."
- The first night is
definitely tough.
There's no way that
I could sleep
because I felt if I slept,
I might miss something,
just a little detail.
- We don't know what to do.
You know, once you've
called the police,
what is there to do?
So we just sat there
and we listened to the clock,
and it seemed that it was
ticking away
the seconds of
my daughter's life.
- After the police did
their investigation at my home
the night Alicia disappeared,
their thought was that she was
quite possibly a runaway.
They said, "Well, maybe
she'll be home by morning."
I mean, that was their thought,
and I guess it was meant to be
uplifting and hopeful,
but it was just more terrifying.
A friend of mine called me
and said,
"Is she home yet?"
And I said, "No."
And I started to cry
so she rushed over to my home
and she said,
"Well, it looks like
"we're gonna have to take this
into our own hands
since you haven't heard
anything."
And we started to research
the phone book
and, thank God, one of
the numbers that we came upon
was the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children.
So I called them,
and immediately
they took the information
and they told me,
just send a picture,
so that they could
place it online.
They told me that
within the next day
I would be getting a packet with
"missing" posters that
I could disseminate.
- National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children
was started in 1984
as the need for a clearing house
for missing children grew.
- I remember speaking to
Alicia's mom
on the 2nd of January.
The picture of Alicia was
put up on our website
within 24 hours,
no time was wasted.
- They were very quick,
and that was so important
because that sort of gave us
a little bit of hope that
somebody would see her there.
- When I woke up
the next morning,
he had taken me upstairs
to his bedroom,
and he grabbed
what was a dog collar,
and he put it on my neck.
And then he grabbed a padlock
and he locked it on there.
And he picked up
this heavy chain
and he attached it to
the dog collar,
and he raped me.
I was so helpless and so broken,
and this man was so big
and overpowering
and disgusting.
I felt everything that
I loved and cared about
was just gone.
He'd taken everything.
- My dad is the warden of
Allegheny County,
and he did a lot of backdoor
things to help.
- My father-in-law,
he had connections,
and he was able to
place some calls.
And so we had the FBI in
our living room
within 24 hours.
- We went to her house
and we talked to mom and dad,
and they were telling us that
Alicia was a really good kid
and would never just walk away.
And they have a computer
in her room,
but they're sure she's not doing
anything on it
and nothing was wrong.
So then we went to her school
and got
a drastically different story.
Her friends are telling us
she's on the computer a lot.
She's on the computer till
late at night,
halfway through the night.
Her grades are failing.
She's very tired at school.
We did find out about
a boyfriend.
So now it rises
our level concern.
Okay, what is she doing?
What is happening?
Did she meet somebody
on the computer?
We never worked a case like that
before.
We were in very strange
territory
we hadn't been in before.
- They came to our house
and immediately took
the computer.
At that point, I said,
this is a little more serious.
This is something different.
- I've lived in Pittsburgh
most of my life.
Crafton Heights is
a safe community.
It's a suburb of Pittsburgh.
- It was typical middle class,
not the part of town where
you would see something like
this happening.
- The fact that she may have
been abducted
by somebody she met
on the internet,
it likely was the first story
locally
that we had ever dealt with.
The internet was so new
that we didn't know,
what does this mean?
It's really frightening that
in our community she may have
been lured by somebody
she had contact with
on the internet.
- The second day,
I cried myself into
some sort of stupor
where I was half asleep,
half awake.
And I was quickly brought back
to awareness
to him on top of me
just punching me
all over my body
and being chained
and screaming out in pain.
And it was at this point that
I really tried to fight back,
and he broke my nose.
And I could remember
wanting to scream
and cry and be very emotional,
but also that
that's what he wanted,
and I didn't want to
give that to him.
I was so scared
and so far from home
and felt like
I could never be found here
in the middle of nowhere
with this terrifying monster.
I knew that my parents were
going to figure this out.
The question was, would they
figure it out quickly enough?
- It wasn't until 2003
that more than 50%
of America's homes
had an internet connection.
So at the time
Alicia's case came in
she was in the minority.
- We all know about stranger
danger and evil predators,
but to think that somebody could
reach across the web
and-- and grab your child,
that was new.
Nobody had heard of that.
It was still urban legend.
- My wife was staying strong at
the worst times
because she was relentless.
As things got more serious,
Mary decided she's gonna stay on
the phone, she's gonna do this.
It was every single minute.
I basically couldn't even
talk to her.
You know, people were
trying to feed us.
She wouldn't eat.
I wouldn't eat.
- I don't know where
my child is.
I don't know what
she's enduring.
I can't eat
because she's not eating.
I mean, how can I eat?
How-- how can I sleep?
How can I--
how can I do anything
when I don't know where
my child is?
- You don't believe
this can happen.
It doesn't happen to
good people.
It's-- it's-- no, no.
It actually can happen to
anybody.
- It happens
because predators are evil,
and the internet has
created a tool
that gives them easy
and quick access
to the vulnerable.
So it can happen.
- My hands are bound
above my head,
and I'm covered in bruises,
and I'm being beaten.
While this man held me captive,
he broadcasted himself
abusing me
to other people online, live.
I had no idea
I was being filmed.
Being chained and knowing
you can't go anywhere
even when you can see a door,
it makes you feel...
so helpless.
Throughout my captivity,
I did whatever I had to do
to survive.
No matter how humiliating
or painful or disgusting,
I did it.
- The second day there was
quite a few fears.
With the weather conditions
the way they were
and Alicia without the coat
and without any kind of money
or anything,
you were always worried about
her being alive.
- It's terrifying when you think
that you can be doing everything
that you think is correct,
you can be right there
with your kids all the time,
and you still really don't have
control over the circumstances
in their lives.
My daughter being missing
was hell.
It was pure hell.
- For cases like Alicia's,
the urgency is very high.
There are people out there that
have bad intentions,
who are seeking to use
our children.
Everybody who works on cases of
missing children knows that
the moment that child leaves
their home
they're in harm's way.
- The biggest fear was that
we would not find her alive.
Over the years,
we've worked kidnapping cases
and the child is murdered.
So my fear was that
we wouldn't find her,
and if we did find her, it
would be that she was murdered.
- Alicia's poster was posted on
the website
for the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children
within 24 hours.
- Immediately they said,
"Get these posters out.
"Get Alicia's picture
everywhere you can.
"Get some recognition out there.
"You need to do this right away,
"because the longer you wait,
who knows what can happen."
- There was no community
involvement whatsoever.
There were no candles.
There were no vigils.
There were a few neighbors,
a few friends,
that put up some posters.
People didn't want to
get involved.
They would ask me, "Couldn't you
have stopped it?"
In fact, I had a whole community
that felt that
I could have stopped it
and that it was my fault.
And it was very hard to explain
because no one had
ever heard of grooming.
How do you explain to people
who are totally ignorant
of the term
that your child was
basically brainwashed?
They don't want to believe that,
so they tended to vilify us,
and that's very difficult.
There were a few neighbors,
a few friends,
that put up some posters
and who came to my house.
But, I mean, basically,
other than those few people,
we were totally alone.
But I had to stay strong.
I had to stay strong for her.
- The timing of this was
right after New Year's,
so it was a holiday break,
so he was home much of the time.
On the third day,
he'd taken me down
into that dungeon
and strapped my hands above me
and just started hitting me.
It felt like
it would never stop,
it would never end.
At times, I was chained
in the basement
and there was only inches
I could move.
I did think about escaping
but I was always chained.
The keys he kept on a wall that
was just out of reach.
And it was almost a sick game
that I could see them,
that if I could reach
those keys,
I could maybe get out of this.
But I couldn't,
and I started to lose that hope.
So pretty much from that point,
I thought he would very likely
just--
he'd end my life.
- As we were days into this,
it was harder and harder to
maintain hope.
- The longer this went on,
the likelihood of them
recovering Alicia alive
lessened.
- We did find information on
Alicia's computer.
It was pretty typical
teenage angst.
I'm miserable.
I'm unhappy with this.
My parents are mean.
Maybe a young girl trying to
get some attention,
not realizing
the dangers behind it.
These are tough cases to work,
because we're dealing with
the most vulnerable population,
somebody that cannot help
themselves.
So we need to up our game here
and-- and bring her home
as soon as we can.
- We were three days in.
The woman from Team HOPE
called me.
Team HOPE is comprised of
parents whose children
have been abducted.
And what she had said to me was,
"You're three days in.
"That's a long time.
"Your best chance of
seeing your daughter alive
"is to get her face out there.
Somebody somewhere
has to have seen her."
I go to the FBI and I ask them,
could the media become involved?
And their answer was,
I don't see why not.
I don't think we have anything
to lose at this point.
Like, how do you hear that?
There's just no words that
convey that--
that agony.
- When I first heard about
Alicia's disappearance,
we got notification that
there was a missing teenager.
At that time,
I probably only had done
maybe one or two other stories
about the internet,
about the dangers of them.
This was all very new to us.
- When there's a search
going on,
law enforcement does not inform
you of what they're doing,
so we were frustrated.
We didn't know
if they knew anything,
and they weren't sharing it.
- We can't tell,
not only the family,
but the public
what techniques we're using
and everything we're doing.
And it's upsetting to know
everything that we're doing.
You know, "What do you mean you
have dogs looking in this area?"
I mean, why put them
through that
if ultimately that
doesn't turn out?
Hope is the single most
important emotion you can have
when you're going through
something truly awful.
I knew my parents were
looking for me.
I knew that they loved me
and that--
that love is what kept me going.
The fact that I knew my parents
were searching,
and if we were both doing what
we needed to do,
if I were staying alive
and they were searching,
then I would be rescued.
- I personally went down to
our local paper
and made sure this picture was
in the paper.
You have to keep your nose to
the grindstone
and keep pushing forward.
This is very important that
you do that.
Because the media can be
a very good friend
in this situation,
and the farther you can get
her picture out,
the better the results might be.
It's-- it's-- If you do nothing,
you get nothing.
You have to get out there
and do something,
because seconds are
very important,
very important.
I had a lot of regrets.
Being a father,
you have to secure your family,
secure your home.
I felt guilty.
I didn't protect my little girl.
- I wasn't able to keep track of
how much time had passed,
how long I had been chained to
this floor.
He grabbed me by my chin
and looked me in the eye
and said, "I'm beginning to
like you too much.
Tonight we're going to go
for a ride."
And I absolutely took that as
he's gonna kill me.
This was my last chance.
Today is the day that
I'm going to fight
and do whatever I can do
to get away.
And then I realized
it's probably not gonna work.
I'd already tried to fight him.
I'd already lost.
He'd already overpowered me
so many times.
So I started to accept
my own death,
and I started to lose that hope.
- As the investigation unfolded,
I had a ton of people
assisting me.
We didn't even go home.
We stayed in the office
and just slept in the office.
But there weren't
a lot of crazy leads,
and we had put
a lot of faith into
the computer forensic examiner
to try to find something
on the computer.
We had no idea.
We don't know where she's at.
We don't know who she's with,
if she's still alive.
We were three days in,
it was in the middle of the
night, then we got a big break.
- The big break we got
in this case was when
we got a call from
an anonymous source in Florida.
This individual
knew somebody online
and this friend
had told him that
he was going to travel
and get a young girl.
This guy put two and two
together
and he started looking through
the papers at that time
and saw there was a young girl
missing out of Pittsburgh.
So then he contacted the FBI,
and he gave us the screen name.
That lead us to a Yahoo!
account.
And at that point,
we got on Yahoo! ourselves
and we were shocked at
what we saw.
He seems to have
this serious interest in BDSM,
and he had very distinct
sexual desires,
and that was alarming.
- The man who was holding
my daughter,
he shared his torment
and abuse of her
online in streaming video
with a number of cronies
across the world.
And one man in Florida saw it.
He didn't want to be an
accomplice
so he called the FBI,
and they told me that, you know,
we don't know a lot
but your daughter is somewhere
being held in a dungeon
by somebody.
She's naked.
She's been tortured.
And if he knows
you're looking for her,
he's gonna put her in a box.
It was terrifying.
It was absolutely terrifying.
- Through our investigation,
we identified a name
and an address for Scott Tyree,
and he was 38 years old,
living in Virginia.
So we contacted
our Washington field office
to hopefully find Alicia.
- On the fourth day,
he left for work.
You know, I didn't know
if I was truly alone.
I thought that this was a game,
that he may have
just been standing
right outside of the door
waiting to hear me scream.
So my goal that day was
to stay alive.
Hours had passed.
At this point,
he had me chained to the bed,
and I heard this banging.
- And then there were voices,
and they sounded angry.
And I thought that he had
sent somebody to kill me.
So I rolled off of the bed
and hid underneath it.
Next thing I knew,
a man had come to
the other side of the bed
and he commanded that I crawl
out from underneath the bed.
And I crawled out and I looked
into the barrel of a gun.
And then he turned around
and I saw "FBI"
on the back of his jacket.
All of these agents rushed in
and I knew I was being rescued.
It felt like a miracle.
- There was at least
50 people in my office,
and when they told us they found
her and she was alive,
it was a cheer.
The whole office was cheering,
'cause we were all just
so relieved that on our watch
she was found alive.
- At approximately
3:30 pm this afternoon,
Alicia Kozakiewicz was rescued
by agents of
the FBI's Washington
field office.
At this point,
it appears that Alicia has
no life-threatening injury,
however she has been taken to
a hospital
for further examination.
- They took a lot of pictures
in the hospital
and they did their examination,
and then they gave me
a bag of clothes,
a little care package.
I was so traumatized that
I just wanted to come home,
and I wanted to know where
my parents were.
- My husband got a phone call,
"We need you down here
immediately."
- "Alicia was found."
We didn't hear if she was okay,
and we didn't realize
what it was.
- To me, when he said that,
I thought that we were going to
identify a body.
So we walk into a room,
and the one woman
who had been running
the investigation,
she starts saying something
about, she's in this,
or she's there,
and I really wasn't catching it.
And I looked up and I said,
"So you know where she is?"
And she goes,
"Yeah, we have her.
"She's in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital,
but she's okay."
And that's when the sunlight
just burst in.
- My wife and I, at that point,
were just overjoyed.
- Our protocol is, of course,
take her to a hospital.
So the FBI flew the parents
to Virginia to meet with her.
- They put us in a room,
and I seen a door open.
Then I seen my daughter.
She wasn't in perfect condition.
- My dad ran up to me
and he gave me this hug.
- This hug was so deep
and so important.
It was the most comforting
feeling
that you could ever have.
- One of the agents said that
in 16 years,
this is the first day that
he wasn't pulling a body
from the ground.
- When Alicia was located,
it was
an incredible feeling that
she made it out alive.
Knowing that Alicia's photo was
on our website,
that somebody out there
saw the picture
and called in a tip,
saved her life,
it certainly feels good
to know that
someone is alive today
because of your efforts.
- A 13-year-old Pittsburgh
girl, back home today
after falling victim to
a sexual predator.
- Once Alicia was rescued,
the investigation shifted to
finding Scott Tyree.
tic music]
- Once agents went into
Scott Tyree's house
and found Alicia
and realized that Scott Tyree
was not home,
then they immediately went to
Scott Tyree's work,
and he was arrested without
any kind of conflict at all.
- After Alicia was rescued,
we found out the kind of person
that Scott Tyree was.
He had been trolling
the internet
looking for teenage girls
willing to be dominated
and owned by him.
He had whips and chains
and paddles
and other instruments used in
sadomasochistic sex.
- Scott Tyree did plead guilty,
and he received 19 years
and 7 months in federal prison.
- It took me about five years
to really forgive myself.
I was a 13-year-old kid,
and kids make mistakes,
and no adult should ever take
advantage of a child's mistake.
After something like this
happens to you,
you realize that there is
real evil in this world.
There are people out there
who intend to harm others
and get gratification from it.
So my family and I vowed that
we would do everything
in our power
to work to make sure that this
did not happen to another child.
I started going into schools
and talking with kids,
really trying to get across that
if this can happen to me,
it can happen to you.
I am currently working getting
Alicia's Law passed
in all 50 states.
It's currently passed
in nine states.
Alicia's Law funds
the Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Forces,
like the group that
helped to rescue me.
So it's just this constant
stream of funding for them
so that they can get
the training, the resources,
the boots on the ground
to go out and rescue children.
There are so many young girls
whose stories will
never be heard.
When I speak,
what I say is for all of us
who exist in pain and fear
and sometimes even shame.
Please support the children.
Save us from pedophiles.
Thank you.
When I was missing,
I thought about,
when was the last time
I told you guys
that I loved you?
It's so important to let people
in your life know
that you love them,
because you never know
when they're just going to
go away.
- Alicia,
we feel that love.
And thank you for saying it,
and thank you for loving us.
But we equally
love you.
- I love you.
- I love you more.
- The last time I saw Alicia was
at a conference,
and she was a presenter.
She was only 17.
It was kind of a big deal,
because you don't often get to
meet survivors.
So it was really important to
make a face-to-face connection
with somebody that
you've helped.
So it'll be real exciting to
reconnect after all this time.
- Hey.
- Hi!
- There she is.
- Here I am. Hi!
- Here you are.
- So nice to see you.
- I was asked when
I saw you last.
I had to kind of go
back in time a little bit.
It was the Hand in Hand
conference,
and I think you were 17.
- Wow.
- It was 2005.
I remember just thinking,
my gosh,
she's so young
and she's up here.
And she's speaking
and doing such a great job.
- So I've been sharing
my story now for 13 years.
- Wow.
Like, that's
a long, long time.
- That's incredible.
- But a lot of good has
come out of it.
- When we discovered that
you had been found,
it was an amazing feeling,
because even though
nothing good happened
in the time that
you were held,
you can't compare
the joy that--
that comes with--
with knowing that
the bad guy lost.
- Right,
and I got to go home.
- That's it, absolutely.
- I'm just so thankful
for the work that
you did
and law enforcement does,
because without it,
I would not be here.
I know in my heart,
I would not be here.
- To survive an ordeal
like the one Alicia endured
takes courage
and a lot of strength.
The fact that she continually
seeks to help others
through her experience
just speaks to that bravery
and strength.
- The very fact that
she speaks out
about something so traumatic
that happened to her
half her life ago
is nothing short of--
of commendable.
The legacy of this story is that
we did learn more about
internet predators.
- A common saying is that
things happen for a reason.
But bad things don't happen in
our life for a reason.
Instead, we can make a purpose
out of the chaos,
and that's what I've been doing
working to ensure that
another child
does not have to endure
this pain.
- It was a miracle.
We were blessed.
That monster,
he took my child.
He stole my baby,
but we got her back.