Category Archives: Midsi Sanchez

Kidnap Super Lotto

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Amanda Berry

Amanda Berry

The missing person world so often ends in tragedy and heartbreak. Human remains are delivered to the morgue in body bags, or go uncollected in the wilderness, go undetected in shallow graves, or tossed callously down steep embankments. Perverts are arrested and charged with crimes so heinous that they defy description or understanding. So, when a child who was taken by a sexual predator turns up days, months, or even years later it is a time to rejoice and reflect.

 

The miracle in Cleveland is akin to the kidnap super-lotto! Amanda, Gina, and Michelle are apparently healthy. All have been released from the hospital; have returned home to their families, or into seclusion, away from the glare of cameras and the probing questions of aggressive reporters. They have expressed their thanks and gratitude, and they have asked for privacy as they attempt to heal from the sadistic torment and torture inflicted upon them at the hands of a despicable monster. We should all honor their wishes, step back and hope that they are able to successfully re-enter a world that rushed past them at breakneck speed.

 

The defining moment, the one that changed everything for the three young women occurred when Amanda Berry took advantage of her first opportunity to escape the dilapidated hovel on Seymour Avenue. She demonstrated remarkable courage and poise in effecting her desperate and daring escape. Had she failed her prospects would have been grim and terrifying at best. Instead, with the help of hometown hero Charles Ramsey, she was able to say the words that are still reverberating around the world, “I’m Amanda Berry. I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for ten-years, and I’m here now. Now I’m free!!!”

 

Amanda found something profound stirring in her soul last Tuesday. She found the will to power. Parents should be talking to their children about how Amanda’s desire to live on her own terms, and not those of her tormentor, catapulted her through the broken door and into the light. He was bigger than her, he was stronger than her, but he lacked her patience, intelligence, and desire.

Midsi Sanchez

Midsi Sanchez

Midsi Sanchez also had the will to power. In 2000, after nearly three days of being chained inside her kidnapper’s car in Northern California, seven-year-old Midsi was able to free herself and make a frantic run for freedom. It was subsequently discovered that he had kidnapped and killed children prior to snatching Midsi off of the street as she walked home from school, so her courage and grace under pressure not only saved her own life, but also the lives of countless future victims.

Elizabeth Shoaf

Elizabeth Shoaf

In 2006, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Shoaf was kidnapped while walking home from the school bus. She was forced into an underground bunker where she was held prisoner for ten-days. This remarkable teenager outsmarted and outfoxed the creep who took her. Elizabeth directed the authorities to her underground prison. When the kidnapper realized that he was under pursuit by watching the news on a battery-powered television in the bunker he asked Elizabeth for advice. She told him to run away and stepped through the hatch into the light.

Jeanette Tamayo

Jeanette Tamayo

Jeanette Tamayo was only nine-years-old when a sexual predator pummeled her brother and mother and then kidnapped her from her home in 2003. Within two days, she gained his trust, and then convinced him that she had asthma and a contagious disease. When he let her go he didn’t realize that she had taken trinkets with his fingerprints on them. The authorities arrested him hours later.

 

These cases did not make national headlines, but the stories are huge and parents should be talking to their children about these kids who used intelligence and courage to defeat brute force, fear and intimidation. Because they were able to dig deep down inside these girls beat the devil and earned the right to say, “Now I’m free”!!!

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Boy in the Bunker

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UntitledOn January 29, 2013 retired long haul trucker Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded a school bus returning children home after school and demanded two young boys. When bus driver Charles Poland put himself between the interloper and the children Dykes shot him to death. He then kidnapped a five-year-old child, known only as Ethan, and took him into an underground bunker on his property. He was holed up in the bunker with the boy until today. This afternoon authorities raided the bunker, killed Dykes and rescued Ethan.

 

This would seem like the perfect conclusion to a tense ordeal that could have ended much more tragically. Although he was not physically harmed, little Ethan witnessed the violent death of two individuals, and was held prisoner in a small underground fortress with a bitter and angry man for nearly a week. What happens to crime victims after the TV Trucks coil the cable, lower the microwave antennas and move onto the next crime de jour? After all, he is a fragile little child who has endured more trauma than most people can imagine. Of course his path to normalcy is fraught with challenges.

 

I have crossed paths with many remarkable people these past twenty years, but few have inspired or awed me more than Alicia Kozakiewicz, Midsi Sanchez, or Elizabeth Shoaf. These amazing young women have not only triumphed over their own kidnapping/hostage situations, they have used that experience to build strength, resolve and focus.

 

Eight-year-old Midsi Sanchez was walking home from school in Vallejo, California on August 12, 2000 when she was kidnapped and chained to the filthy floorboard of a car. Forty-four hours later she took advantage of an opportunity, unlocked her shackles and escaped into the protective arms of a passing truck driver. Her kidnapper was later linked to the death of other young girls in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Midsi endured bullying in school, descended into alcohol and cheated death yet again, when at sixteen-she was in a near fatal car crash. Upon learning that she was pregnant while in the hospital, Midsi vowed to change her ways. These past years the devoted mother of a three-year-old toddler has been an invaluable KlaasKids Foundation volunteer and advocate for missing child. She has been profiled on numerous news magazines and talk shows.

 

On New Year’s Day 2002, thirteen-year-old Alicia Kozakiewicz was lured into the clutches of an internet predator. Five-days later the Western Pennsylvania Crimes Against Children Task Force located, rescued and reunited Alicia with her very relieved parents. Alicia has since testified before federal and state legislative committees about Internet safety. She is the driving force behind Alicia’s Law which, among other things, strives to provide permanent funding for Internet Crimes Against Children taskforces. Alicia continues to make frequent appearances on broadcast and cable news magazines and leads the Alicia Project which is dedicated to protecting other children from the online victimization.

 

Elizabeth Shoaf was fourteen-years-old when she was kidnapped by a registered sex offender posing as a police officer on September 6, 2006 after getting off of the school bus near her home in Lugoff, South Carolina. Her kidnapper walked her into the woods and imprisoned her in an underground bunker. Ten-days later Elizabeth completely outwitted her tormenter and engineered her own escape.  I met her earlier this year on the set of the Ricki Lake Show, one of many television programs she has appeared on to tell her story.

 

The path to recovery has been difficult for each of these young ladies, but each has found ways to triumph over their own demons. Counseling, prayer, family have engaged each of them to varying degrees. But, it was coming to terms with their own victimization and deciding to use their experience as a cautionary tale for other children that led them to the light. Midsi, Alicia, and Elizabeth are empowered young ladies who positive and productive in their lives. Let us hope that Ethan too will find a way to beat the devil.

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Sierra LaMar: Anatomy of a Search Day 191

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Linnea Lomax

We who are drawn to and volunteer at missing person search centers are focused on the singular goal of rescuing and/or recovering a missing person. Sometimes, as in the case of Linnea Lomax, the missing person is found very quickly, as we are just learning to recognize each other’s faces. We shake hands and return home knowing that we have helped a family find answers. Other times, searches can be drawn out for months or even years. People who might not have met for any other reason or purpose suddenly find themselves captives of the emotional vortex that is the search center. That is when things can become complicated.

Polly Klaas

When we were searching for Polly in 1993, hundreds of volunteers were drawn to our search center. Some visited once or maybe twice, but others returned time and time again. Over the two month period that we were looking for Polly, as we became friends instead of strangers, many of the volunteers let their guard down and began sharing personal details about their lives. For some reason many of those volunteers, mostly women, confessed secrets to me. Some of those secrets were so deep seeded that I suspect they had never before been shared. Most had to do with being molested or otherwise victimized when they were children. As difficult as the stories were to listen to, they had to be much harder to tell, because sometimes the ladies would cry or pause to collect their emotions. Many carried guilt, some were still angry, others had found peace through counseling or spirituality, a few had substance abuse issues, but all were driven to help a little girl and her desperate family. Without exception, they admitted that they were volunteering to find my daughter as a way to reconcile, or make amends, with their own past.

Sierra LaMar

At the Sierra LaMar Search Center, which has been active for six months now, many of the people on the KlaasKids team are damaged souls. Violet and I lost Polly. My brother in law Kelby was also very close to Polly and has made search and rescue work a major component of his volunteer activity ever since. I met Danny Domingo at a search center in Vallejo that was established for his niece Xiana Fairchild in 1999. Her skull was found in the Santa Cruz Mountains in January, 2001.  Midsi Sanchez survived her own harrowing ordeal at the hands of a predator in 2000. Michael Le and Krystine Dinh are currently attending the trial of the woman who killed their beloved sister and cousin Michelle Le. Debbie and Pat Boyd, who I first met at the Sierra Search Center, have never recovered the remains of their daughter Kristie Wilson, although an individual has been convicted of murdering her in October, 2005. I share this only because I truly believe that those who have suffered victimization sometimes resolve to assist others who are currently enduring victimization as a way to give meaning to their own struggles.

Xiana Fairchild

I am concerned that many of the things that brought us together to find Sierra and now undermining the effort to achieve this singular goal. I see people criticizing and nitpicking over trivial matters. Social media is being used as a weapon to undermine, not strengthen our search effort, by focusing on peripheral issues that detract from, and not enhance the common cause. Personality clashes that should be confronted or dealt with in person are instead being posted on Facebook. Alliances and cliques that have personal agendas clutter the path to Sierra like weeds, and make it difficult to stay on course.

Midsi Sanchez

We should refocus on the positive things that have been achieved these past six months. Friendships have been formed. Some of us have found new purpose in our lives. A cause that is bigger than any of us has united us in a common goal. We have made our community proud, and we are closer to finding Sierra than we have ever been before. The work that we are doing together in Morgan Hill can be transformational if only we allow ourselves to stay the course, but right now we are drifting.

Christie Wilson

Together we need to refocus and find Sierra. By doing so, we might finally find ourselves.

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Sierra LaMar: Anatomy of a Search Day 68

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Midsi Sanchez at Find Sierra Search Center

Midsi Sanchez is not a household name like Elizabeth Smart or Jaycee Dugard, but she is a kidnap survivor. Unlike Elizabeth or Jaycee, Midsi demonstrated extraordinary courage during her darkest moment and affected her own escape.

 

On August 10, 2000 8-year-old Midsi Sanchez was abducted while walking home from school in Vallejo, California. After being chained to the gear shift of the kidnapper’s car for 44-hours, she grabbed the keys when he left momentarily, unlocked her ankle shackles and fled. Her courageous act not only saved her own life, but it resulted in the arrest and successful prosecution of Curtis Dean Anderson, a known pedophile who subsequently admitted that he kidnapped and murdered another young Vallejo resident named Xiana Fairchild.

 

Midsi returned home in triumph and was showered with honors and awards, including National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s first ever Courage Award on May 17, 2001. The next several years were difficult for Midsi. Schoolmates demanded to know the gruesome details of the ordeal that she only wanted to forget. Girls at school taunted her, ostracized her, and finally pushed her to the point of no return. Midsi ended up on the streets of Vallejo, strung out on drugs and alcohol.

 

Sandra Cantu

On March 27, 2009 8-year-old Sandra Cantu was reported missing by her family. Seeing Sandra’s missing flyer helped lead Midsi to her true purpose in life. She reached out to console Sandra’s family and can still see the pain in her mother’s eyes. Midsi says that, “I had to dig deep down inside of the little girl who escaped from the pervert and recover that same courage that helped her get away.”

On May 1, 2009 Midsi was involved in a drinking and driving automobile accident. She flew out an automobile window at 90 mph and broke her neck. “I saw that as God’s way of saying stop, be still. This is not the path I want you to follow.” Exactly two weeks after being discharged from the hospital, Midsi learned that she was going to be a mother. She says, “That was the day my life took a change for the better. I became sober, healthy and able to think and plan with clarity.”

Midsi and Marc Klaas

For the past two years Midsi has been an active volunteer for the KlaasKids Foundation. “Working with KlaasKids has taught me the importance of utilizing the press in missing persons’ cases, that I can help the families of missing children by providing council, organizing fundraisers, or simply providing a hug or smile. At the end of the day I want the families to see me as an example of what is possible, not what is probable.”

 

Midsi and Marlene LaMar

Shortly after learning of the disappearance of Sierra LaMar Midsi started attending vigils to support the missing girl’s family. At the first vigil Midsi introduced herself to Sierra’s mother, father and sister. After telling her story to the attendant crowd Marlene LaMar thanked Midsi, telling her that, “You made me feel so much better.”

 

In the months since Sierra’s disappearance Midsi has been a regular presence at the Find Sierra Search Center, always ready with a hug, a word of encouragement or a project. In early April Midsi and her friend Davina Joy organized a youth brigade to give Sierra’s peers a way to help in the search. They organized flyer distributions, poster creations, car washes and other activities.

 

Midsi Sanchez is not a household name like Elizabeth Smart or Jaycee Dugard, but she is a kidnap survivor and she is in the trenches regularly sharing her special gift with those who need it the most: the families of the missing.

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Sierra LaMar: Anatomy of a Search Day 47

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I’m so God damned angry that I can barely see straight. We have been searching for Sierra LaMar for 64-days now. That’s more than two months. I’ve watched this community rise to the occasion on multiple levels. I’ve seen support come in from all over the Bay Area. I’ve thought, more than once, that today is the day that we will find Sierra. Yet here we are, still: looking; hoping; and engaged in internal dialogues, trying to negotiate with a God who forces families to reach into the depths to endure open ended misery. I understand that life isn’t fair, but this is ridiculous. Where is the mercy?

 

Somewhere out there a goon who does or doesn’t drive a red Jetta with a black hood has created an intolerable situation that only he can end. Was he born without conscience or is he a product of of a dysfunctional environment? Does hate and destruction come naturally or did he hone his demonic skill set over time?

 

He turns his back in indifference, eating pizza, drinking beer and generating a vibe so negative that it has a community up in arms and a family caught up in emotional free fall. I wonder if he thinks about Sierra on a daily basis or only when the flyers and news reports remind him that many are still looking? In the final analysis it doesn’t really matter. And all we can do in response is send out search parties, keep open minds in the face of near statistical certainty and encourage the family to stay strong for their girl. The only thing that is important is bringing Sierra home.

 

Listen turd. You have the power to end this right now. You don’t have to turn yourself in. Just clean up your business and cover your tracks. Let Sierra’s family have her back, whatever that means. Then you can go about your business, target your next victim and reign terror on somebody else’s community. Just understand that you can’t get away with this forever.

 

Ultimate Survivor Midsi Sanchez

At some point you are going to mess up. You’ll leave your DNA, or there will be a witness, or your victim will escape like Midsi Sanchez did back in 2000. Then and only then it will be your turn to pay. The wages of your sin will be steep. Hopefully yours will be a long and painful death. Then you will rot in hell forevermore.

 

I know something about guys like you. My family was bedeviled at one time. He haunted and tormented us as he looked away in indifference. It lasted for 65-days. Finally, he is in a place where he has no influence, no future, and most importantly no hope.

 

When we began looking for Sierra there was a vacant lot across the street from the search center. Now there’s a housing development. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll still be here when the children of the young families that move into these houses graduate from high school.

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Sierra LaMar: Anatomy of a Search Day 2

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Yesterday was about organization, but today is all about action. It overwhelmed us like a human tsunami. A wave of volunteers descended upon the Find Sierra Search Center to help find the missing 15-year-old girl. We were optimistically prepared for 150-volunteers, based upon the bubbling cauldron of anticipation that we all detected. However we were not prepared for 583-people to show up early on a cool, gray Tuesday morning. Are there really that many unemployed people in Morgan Hill, CA., or was something else going on? I like to think that all of these caring people had found a higher calling than a paycheck for at least this one day. Sometimes it takes the worsts of humanity to inspire the best of humanity.

It was dark and raining when I left home this morning so I dressed for the weather. However, by the time I approached Morgan Hill, the sun had appeared over the horizon and the sky was somewhat overcast, but it looked like the weather was going to cooperate with Find Sierra for at least one more day. The nearer I got to the search center the more I focused on the details: is she in that pile of dirt, hiding in that abandoned building, somewhere on that high ridge? Is she waiting to be rescued like Elizabeth Smart, or was she trying to effect an escape like 8-year-old Midsi Sanchez succeeded in doing back in 2000.

I thought a lot about Polly on the 90-minute drive to Morgan Hill: how much hope I had at a similar stage in the search, while at the same time trying desperately to hold onto my sanity as the world I knew suddenly ceased to exist, to be replaced by a bizarro world that had no rhyme or reason.

We know so much more now than we did then, and we have so many more tools. Parents have a world of resources that simply didn’t exist in 1993; law enforcement responds more quickly and with a better understanding of the issue, yet Sierra is as invisible today as Polly was between October 1 and December 4, 1993. It infuriates me that I cannot make 2+2=4 and walk this girl into the loving arms of her family. Instead, 2+2=5, or 11, or nothing at all and Sierra is nowhere to be found. 

Polly was the first missing child on the Internet, and now almost two decades later Sierra LaMar is all over the Internet. Polly’s case benefited from some technically astute minds in Northern California at a time when personal computers were just beginning to gain widespread acceptance. When they told me that a first generation flyer could be downloaded anywhere on the planet they might as well have been speaking in tongues. But being a missing child on the Internet helped Polly to become almost as well known on the East Coast as she was in Sonoma County.
 

Sierra LaMar is all over the Internet. Her missing poster is my Facebook profile picture. There are at least three Facebook pages dedicated to her plight and all are providing updates, pictures, story and video links. She also has her own social media accounts. Unfortunately, none have been used since shortly before she disappeared early in the morning on Friday, March 16. That a socially sophisticated teenager with more than 6,000 twitter posts would go cold turkey is an enormous red flag. That her final tweet can be traced to shortly before her disappearance helps to establish a viable timeline. Unfortunately, as far as the Internet has come and despite the fact that Facebook has become the 21st Century milk carton project Sierra LaMar is still missing.

In 2000, 8-year-old Midsi Sanchez was kidnapped by a predatory turd who kept her chained inside his car for three days. At an opportune moment, when her perv left her alone in the car for a moment, Midsi grabbed the keychain that was still in the ignition and systematically went through his keys until she was able to unlock her shackles. Midsi ran, he followed. My very good friend Midsi was at the search center today, the walking turd died in prison in 2009 after admitting to killing two other children. Midsi and her friend Davina are organizing this weekend’s Teen Brigade so that Sierra’s friends can join this unprecedented community effort to bring her home.


 
This afternoon Sierra’s parents announced the Sierra LaMar Fund, established to help with the costs associated with Sierra’s search and rescue efforts, and to fund a reward for information leading to Sierra’s recovery.  Her dad asked the public to contribute to the fund. Contributions can be made directly to the Sierra LaMar Fund at any Chase Bank, or online through the Fundrazr link available at Find Sierra LaMar. Sierra’s mom expressed her gratitude for the amazing show of support.  
 
Breaking News: The Santa Clara County Sheriff today reclassified Sierra’s case from missing person to involuntary missing person. Investigators have treated this case as a possible crime since the beginning and now believe it is highly unlikely she ran away.  

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KlaasKids Continues to Provide Child Safety

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The KlaasKids Foundation Print-A-Thon has been providing free Child Identification throughout the USA since 1994. Our oldest and most loyal sponsor, the St. Louis, Missouri based Dave Mungenast Auto Family has been hosting KlaasKids signature child safety event since 1996. This Saturday 10/15 marks our 15thannual Print-A-Thon in St. Louis, MO.

The Print-A-Thon is a high energy child safety event that utilizes 21st Century technology. KlaasKids fingerprints and photographs children, provides their parents with DNA Collection Kits, pro-active child safety information, and a nine-point-plan on what to do if a child disappears.

Always free to the public, the KlaasKids Print-A-Thon has been serving America’s families for more than a decade.  Since 1994, the KlaasKids Print-A-Thon has fingerprinted and photographed more than 1,000,000 children at no cost to families and without data basing personal or private information.  The Print-A-Thon is always underwritten by community minded sponsors like the Dave Mungenast Auto Family who wish to maintain safe communities and give back to their loyal customers. 

The Print-A-Thon utilizes imaging systems originally developed for federal law enforcement agencies by Sentry Technology that integrate digitized computer technology to fingerprint and photograph children quickly without ink or film.  Parents immediately receive an English or Spanish language 81/2 X 11 inch Bio-Doc® featuring forensic quality, magnified fingerprints, updated photograph, and blank form fields for personal and identifying information.  The back of the Bio-Doc provides safety rules for kids, safety suggestions for parents, instructions for properly storing DNA samples using household items and the 9-step emergency plan.   Since the Foundation does not database children’s personal or private information privacy is guaranteed.  Parents receive the only existing copy of the “Bio-Doc”®.

On Saturday, October 15, KlaasKids will conduct Print-A-Thon’s at 4-separate Mungenast Automotive Family locations. KlaasKids is flying in our “A” Team to ensure that St. Louis continues to receive the high quality, professional Child ID service that Dave Mungenast and KlaasKids has been providing since 1996.

On event day one of our “A” Team coordinators will fingerprint and photograph children at each location from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm. Since it only takes between 1 and 2 minutes to serve each child, hundreds of families can take advantage of this free service during the course of the event.  Because the Foundation utilizes computerized/digitized technology we are able to develop magnified, forensic quality fingerprints on children as young as 3-months old: a feat that no other system can duplicate. KlaasKids Foundation coordinators will answer child safety questions and distribute no cost child and parent safety information. Don’t miss out on this rare and unique opportunity.

Facilitating a Print-A-Thon is a win/win for all the parties involved. It allows our fantastic sponsors to fulfill social responsibility by creating safer communities. It provides parents with an opportunity to engage a safety dialog with their children in a fun and positive environment. However the biggest winners of all are the kids, because they receive tools that enable them to make choices and decisions that will help to avoid victimization in the first place. Individually, none of us has the power to effect profound change, but, by reaching out and linking arms, together, we can change the world.

 I will travel to each location with kidnap survivor Midsi Sanchez to meet families, reacquaint with old friends and make new friends.
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