10 True Stories Of Tough Kids Outsmarting Their Kidnappers And Escaping To Safety
#1
Kidnapping is every parent's worst nightmare, but these tough kids were able to outsmart their kidnappers and get back home safely. Some tactics these kids used were singing gospel so loud and relentlessly the kidnapper got annoyed and gave up, yelling out to strangers for help, attacking the kidnapper with a tire iron, and faking an asthma attack.
#1 Yi In Deyang, China
The haunting photo above shows a young Chinese 13-year-old boy, who is identified only as Yi. In September 2015, Yi was bound and gagged so that he could hardly breathe, and was held captive in an abandoned house. Yi was able to stay calm during the kidnapping and attributed his brave escape to tactics he'd learned about in gangster movies.
#2 Tanya Nicole Kach
When Tanya Kach was 15, she began a relationship with a security guard at her school. Kach's parents had recently divorced and she was vulnerable to the man's manipulative advances. Eventually she agreed to run away with him. The young, naïve Kach became the man's prisoner and was forced to live in secret in a home he shared with his parents and son. Kach was hidden from the other residents of the house for four years until she was 18 and introduced to the family as the man's girlfriend. After 10 years of imprisonment, Kach was able to escape with the help of a neighborhood grocery store clerk and her captor was convicted of kidnapping and sexual abuse.
#3 Erica Pratt
Erica Pratt was kidnapped outside her home and held prisoner in an abandoned house in Philadelphia. While Pratt's kidnappers tried to arrange a ransom, she chewed at the tape around her hands and fumbled her way through the dark basement until she found stairs and a locked door. Pratt kicked through the door and squeezed through a small hole. She immediately started screaming for help and a few neighborhood boys called the police. All in all, Pratt was only kidnapped for 23 hours and her kidnappers were arrested.
#4 Natascha Kampusch
Natascha Kampusch was abducted on her way home from school when she was just 10 years old. Her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, forced her to be his maid, cook, and girlfriend. He inflicted her with nearly every kind of abuse and would lock her in a windowless small room for days. As Kampusch got older her captor allowed her to go out into the garden and occasionally go on trips. One fateful day, Priklopil got distracted on the phone and she ran away. Priklopil was never sent to prison because he committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Kampusch bought the house where she was held captive to prevent it from being exploited for entertainment.
#5 Rebecca Savarese, Kidnapper Lewis Lent
Rebecca Savarese was kidnapped on her way to school in 1994. The man who attempted to abduct her, Lewis Lent Jr., pressed a hand gun to her back and led her to his truck. Savarese was able to muster her inner warrior and stayed calm during the ordeal. As they approached the truck, Savarese faked an asthma attack and caught the man off-guard. She took off running and neighborhood people were able to get the license plate of the truck. With the information provided by Savarese, police were able to capture Lent and eventually got him to confess to several murders of young children and teens.
#6 Calysta Cordova
Sometimes the most important thing for kidnapped children to do is speak up. When 9-year-old Calysta Cordova was kidnapped, her family was devastated. A man named Jose Garcia abducted the young girl on her way home from school. Garcia had followed Cordova and threw her in his car where he tied her up. She fought back ferociously and the man punched her in the face several times. Garcia drove her around for nearly a whole night until he got into a car accident. When the pair was given a lift to a local gas station, Garcia called 911 and refused to leave the gas station with her captor.
#7 Jeannette Tamayo
Jeannette Tamayo came home from school one day in 2003 to find a strange man in her house. After a long ordeal fighting off her mother and brother, the man drove off with Tamayo and kept her captive in his home. Tamayo was able to escape when she pretended she had a lung disease and desperately needed medication. She made the man believe she would die without her medicine and he eventually dropped her off on a street corner. When Tamayo was free, she ran into a store and called the police.
#8 Midsi Sanchez
In 2000, Midsi Sanchez was captured and thrown into a truck where she was handcuffed to a gearshift and hidden under a blanket. Sanchez was given only alcohol to drink and her kidnapper drove for a few days before he stopped. When he got out of the car, Sanchez was able to grab the keys and undo her handcuffs. Sanchez climbed out the car window and was picked up by a passing trucker. Sanchez's kidnapper was arrested and confessed to kidnapping and killing six other small children.
#9 Willie Myrick
Although he was subjected to one of the worst things that can happen to a child, Willie Myrick never lost his faith in God. While playing outside on a sunny day, Myrick noticed some money laying next to a tree. When he went to grab it, a man whisked him up and threw him into his car. While bound in the back of a silver Honda Accord, Myrick sang out gospel songs for nearly three hours until his kidnapper got so irritated by him he pulled over and kicked him out of the car. Myrick ran to several neighborhood houses until he got help and was reunited with his family.
#10 Steven Stayner
While some kids are lucky enough to escape their captors within a few hours or days, seven-year-old Steven Stayner was held captive for seven years and deeply brainwashed during that time. Stayner was told his family didn't want him anymore and his kidnapper Kenneth Parnell made him live as his son. Parnell sexually abused Stayner and when he kidnapped another boy, Stayner snapped out of his brainwashing and escaped with the new boy, Timothy White. The two boys would be rescued, and Parnell arrested. Unfortunately, Stayner died in a tragic motorcycle accident at only 24.
