It was a terrible ordeal, brutal and humiliating. After living through the shock of losing their daughter and sister, it’s horrible to think that my family was treated this way. But the truth is, the police had no choice. More than half of all middle-class abductions are carried out by someone who is a family member or close friend. They would have been derelict if they had not looked at every possibility. But that didn’t make it easier or alleviate the pain. Nor did it help to bring me back, which is what my parents were fighting to do. My dad was going crazy, wanting to get home to organize a search, talk to the media, and get my name and picture out there—anything to help find me.
By nine-thirty, the police allowed my parents to go to my grandparents’ house. The questioning of my brothers had also ended. But it would be a long time before my family would be together again. My younger siblings ended up staying with my grandparents for almost a month. My older brother had to bounce around. It seemed there was nowhere for him to go. All of my family were considered suspects, their routines utterly torn apart. For weeks, our home remained a crime scene, my bedroom coated in fingerprint dust and other hallmarks of an investigation. (Months later, in an effort to make it easier for Mary Katherine to feel comfortable in our room, it was redecorated with new wallpaper, paint, and bedding.)
After being questioned by the police, one of my older brothers, along with an adult friend from our church, immediately started searching throughout our neighborhood for any clues. Other search parties started combing through other neighborhoods and the foothills around my home. More and more people showed up, many of them strangers. But still, there was little organization to their efforts.
By early morning, an alert had gone out to the media. Information regarding my abduction began to crawl across the bottom of the local television screens. Radio stations began to relay the information. Soon after, the media were camped in our front yard. Many of them were to stay there a very long time. The national media soon picked up the story. Hundreds of volunteers were searching for me now. I suppose that most of them didn’t understand how crucial the first twenty-four hours of an abduction always is. Law enforcement could have told my parents that if an abductor intends to kill his victim, they usually do it within the first three hours. If a child is taken for ransom, they usually make contact within the first day. I don’t know if they shared this information with my parents. I hope they didn’t. I don’t think it would have helped.
By the end of the first day, several family members and friends were working on a Web site with my picture and information about the search parties that were being organized. Within a short time, it was getting more than one million hits a day. A $10,000 reward was offered for any information that led to my rescue. Within a week, it had grown to $250,000, all of the money contributed by private donors. On the second day, hundreds more volunteers showed up to look for me. The search expanded beyond my neighborhood to the city and the state. Over time, this number swelled to thousands. Individuals and businesses contributed food and supplies for the effort: flashlights, food, water, maps, batteries, coffee, doughnuts, communications gear. Volunteers with bloodhounds came down from Montana. Helicopters were used to search the mountains around my home. Hundreds of posters with my picture on them were distributed to law enforcement officers throughout the inter-mountain region.
On the afternoon of the second day, my father faced the media for the first time. It was an incredibly stressful and emotional experience, but one he would be forced to repeat on an almost daily basis as my parents struggled to keep the search going. Thousands of posters were placed around the city. Eventually, hundreds of thousands were distributed nationwide. Light-blue ribbons and buttons with my picture began to appear from California to Maine.
My abduction was to become the most publicized case since baby Charles Lindbergh had been taken from his crib.
I don’t know what it was that drove so many people to try to help me. It’s beyond my ability to comprehend why so many good people were willing to work and to sacrifice for me, a little girl they didn’t even know. All I know is that I am more grateful than words can express. And to this day I remain the luckiest girl in the world!
13.
A Nice Girl
I don’t remember being thirsty on that first morning in the camp. I don’t remember being hungry. During the first week, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. Well, that’s not quite true. I felt pain. And I felt fear. But those are the only feelings I remember during that time.