I Was Kidnapped As A Child And Managed To Escape

Unfiltered Stories

I was kidnapped as a child...   Today on Unfiltered Stories, we are speaking with the incredibly brave Midsi Sanchez, who was kidnapped when she was a child and against all odds managed to escape. Midsi wants to share her story to show people that whatever you endure, there is always hope for the future.   "You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice"   #UnfilteredStories #Kidnapped #Escaped   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.  Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.    🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00My name is Mitzi Sanchez and I am a survivor of child's kidnapping. I grew up in Vallejo,

00:06California. That day, once the bell rang for us to go home, all of the kids were outside playing.

00:12I left the group of kids and I decided to walk by myself. I was about two blocks away from

00:18home

00:18when I noticed a man sitting in his car and that seemed off to me. But when I noticed him,

00:23he noticed me and I got this yucky feeling in my gut. As I approached the man's car,

00:30he got out of his vehicle and came around the car and asked me if I could help him. He

00:36said that he

00:36could not bend over and he needed my help to pick something up from the floorboard of his car.

00:42And he seemed like he was hurt and I believed him. I leaned into the vehicle to pick up the

00:49duct tape

00:49that was on the floorboard of his car. And that's when he leaned over me from behind,

00:54covered my mouth, put all of his body weight on top of me. So no one around could hear me

00:59scream

00:59for help. And at that moment, I thought to myself, I am being kidnapped. And my mom always said,

01:07if anyone ever tries to grab you, you kick and scream and punch, you fight, you do whatever you

01:12can to get away. But I didn't think that I was ever going to have to use her advice. Usually

01:18when these

01:19types of things happen, it's someone that's close to the family, someone that the child knows,

01:24a family member. But this was a total and complete stranger to me. I had never seen him in my

01:30life

01:30before. So at the time that he grabbed me and put all of his body weight on me, covered my

01:35mouth,

01:35I was kicking and screaming. I lost control of my bladder, but he was very tall and very heavy.

01:44And he overpowered me. There was no way that I was able to get out of his hands. So he

01:51threw me into

01:52the car, rigged the door so I could not open the door from the inside. I was stuck in the

01:58car. And

01:58he drove off with me in the car in the opposite direction of my home. I could see my house.

02:05The time

02:05that he grabbed me and put me in the car and drove off was nothing but 10 seconds. That's all

02:13it takes

02:13for someone to snatch your kid. And he drove off to a nearby store, parked in the parking lot,

02:20made me change my clothes and instantly began to feed me alcohol. And I remember just saying to him,

02:28I can't drink. I'm eight years old. I'm not allowed to drink. And he was like, just shut up and

02:33drink it.

02:33And I even remembered asking him, why did you take me? And he said, someone did it to me

02:39when I was little. I'm eight years old trying to process what is going on. And so I thought to

02:46myself, am I going to do this to kids when I grow up? So we stayed in the car for

02:51the three days that

02:52I was with him. I never left the car. Right after he fed me the alcohol and he made me

02:57change my clothes,

02:58he drove me to a rest area that sits right at the top of the hill of Vallejo. And it

03:04overlooks the

03:04entire city. And he parked there for the first night and he covered the windows with visors and

03:11blankets and towels so nobody could see inside of the car. By the time the sun started to go down,

03:17I began to wonder if my family was looking for me or if they knew what had happened to me.

03:24I was

03:24worried that they didn't know that nobody saw that I was taken. And so the first night that we stayed

03:32at

03:32the rest area, that's when the abuse happened. But that was also the first time that I tried to

03:38escape. I started to look for ways to leave. I asked him if I can use the restroom and he

03:44said,

03:44no, I couldn't because I thought, well, maybe if I use the restroom, I can get away there and maybe

03:48ask for help. But no, he pulled out a long chain and tied it around my left ankle, tied it

03:56to the

03:57gear shift and handed me a Tupperware to urinate in. And as the hours went by, it got darker and

04:04darker. And I even saw a police officer drive by, but he just kept driving. And that's when I began

04:11to lose hope. So for three days, I learned about alcohol, drugs, abuse, kidnappings, all from this

04:22strange man who smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. And I had no idea that these things were real. I

04:30thought that they were only in movies. For three days, I had no food. I had no water. It was

04:36summer.

04:37It was hot. I was in a beat up Oldsmobile with no AC. So as the time went by, I

04:43began to get weak.

04:45I didn't have the nutrients that my body needed in order to survive for a long period of time.

04:53At the moment that he took out that long chain and wrapped it around me, he said to me,

04:59I've done this to many girls and none of them have gone away. So don't even try. He's a professional.

05:07He's kidnapped and murdered 10 girls, young baby girls. He knows what he's doing. So he knows

05:13what we're up to when we're asking these questions because of his experience. And he tried to put

05:20fear in me so that I wouldn't even try. And it worked. So by the second day that I was

05:28with this

05:28man, he had already driven me to another city. It seemed like we had driven for hours. I did not

05:34know where I was at. A lot of the time he would leave me in the car by myself and

05:39he would go watch

05:40my family on the news and he would come back and report to me. And he even showed me a

05:44newspaper

05:45with my face on it. And that was when I got the first glimpse of hope again, because I knew

05:50that

05:50my family was looking for me. The newspaper said eight-year-old Vallejo girl Mitzi Sanchez disappeared.

05:56The last day was the best day. For those two nights that I spent in his car, I couldn't sleep.

06:10I refused to sleep. Even though he was drunk and passed out, I refused to sleep because my

06:18survival instincts had kicked in. And because of the disrespect that he did to my body, I

06:27couldn't bear anymore. And I remember looking up into the sky and all I saw were the beautiful

06:34stars that night. And that was my mental escape from where I was, even though I was trapped

06:42in this little beat up car. And I just wished that I was home. But that third day, he left

06:49to ask for trash bags, which later he admitted to wanting to put my body in. And I thought

06:57to myself, I need to pray. I'm going to die today. So I need to ask for forgiveness because

07:05when I die, I need to be sure that I'm going to make it to heaven. And I jumped over

07:10into the

07:10driver's seat of the vehicle, still chained up. And I laid my head on the steering wheel

07:16and I folded my hands together. I was preparing myself for death, but God had another plan and

07:24he was preparing me for escape. The kidnapper came back. He leaned over me from the passenger's

07:31side, leaned over to the driver's side, dropped the keys, and he told me not to look there.

07:35So as a kid, I was very curious. I was very rebellious. And so I found the keys when he

07:42had left and it was a ring of keys. There were so many keys. And I found the key to

07:48unlock

07:48the chain that was around my ankle and I unlocked it. And I was so surprised that I found the

07:54key

07:54because I was like, okay, it's unlocked. Well, what do I do now? I didn't have a plan, but

07:59I was so scared. And I remembered that he said that he was going to kill me if I tried

08:03to

08:04escape. So I locked it back up. And for a split second, I said, forget it. I'm going home. I

08:11unlocked the chain that was around my ankle. I rolled down the window to that beat up Oldsmobile

08:16and I jumped out of the window. And because I had been so tired, I had no energy. I didn't

08:23eat or

08:23drink anything. My knees buckled and I almost fell to the floor when I jumped out of the car and

08:29I

08:29couldn't even run. I just walked away. So I start to walk towards the street that I had seen and

08:37I

08:38can hear him yelling at me to come back. And cars were driving by me. Nobody was stopping. A big

08:44diesel truck hit the corner and I got desperate and I jumped in front of the truck. The truck had

08:49to

08:49stop, otherwise he was going to hit me. And at that point, I was rather get hit by the truck

08:53than have

08:54to go back with this man. And I ran up to the truck driver's window and I said, my name

09:00is Mitzi Sanchez.

09:01I've been kidnapped. That's the man right there. And the guy got back in his car. He drove off

09:07and the truck driver got a CB radio and he took the guy's license plate number down. Seven to 11

09:13hours

09:14later, the cops found him and arrested him. But during that time, I had to endure and questioning.

09:21I had to enjoy the kit. I had to give them my clothes for evidence. And I was still with

09:28strangers,

09:28but anybody other than that man was a safe stranger to me at that point. They fed me food,

09:34lots of food. I ate so much food that day. And they just really took great care of me during

09:40the

09:41investigation process. But I still didn't get to see my family yet. It was hours before I got to go

09:46home.

09:46But finally, the police department took me to Vallejo. And that's where I saw my mom and my aunt.

09:53I was like crying and laughing. And I just had all of these emotions and they were crying,

09:59but laughing and just joy, but sadness at the same time. But I was back home. And so it was

10:06like

10:06a miraculous reunion. After being reunited with my family, everything was different.

10:13When a child or an adult gets molested or gets raped, is violated, it changes you forever. You're

10:24not the same person that you were before. Your innocence gets taken. You get robbed of your

10:31dignity. The way that my family coped afterwards was very awkward. We were told not to talk about it.

10:40Well, my parents and my siblings were told not to ask me questions. I, of course, didn't want to

10:45talk about it because I had already had to tell the story over and over again to investigators. And

10:50we started going to therapy and my whole family went through that. It wasn't just me. And we had to

10:58prepare for trial. Therapy really helped me prepare for trial. It gave me the confidence and the

11:06experience that I needed to get up there in front of the whole courtroom and testify and point this man

11:15out and face him for the first time since he had taken me. I had to be in the same

11:22courtroom with him.

11:23I had to face him in the courtroom. I had to point him. I had to stand up and point

11:28him out in front of

11:30everybody. I had to look him in the face and say, that's the man right there sitting in the wheelchair.

11:36Curtis Dean Anderson was his name. He was sentenced to 251 years because I had such an amazing judge and

11:44jury. He had been kidnapping since the 1970s. I was taken in 2000. He was put away never to harm

11:51or hurt

11:51anybody ever again. And he ended up dying in prison after serving eight years. After the kidnapping,

11:59my family got a lot of support from the whole country. My story was a nationwide story. The

12:06whole city of Vallejo came to my house. There were so many people cars could not drive by. They were

12:12bringing gifts. They were praying. They were just there to support my family. And one thing they said to

12:20me that stuck with me my whole life was that it was not my fault. And I always think about

12:26a lot of

12:27men and women that I meet that have been abused. They feel like it's their fault. And no one is

12:33here

12:33to tell them that it's not their fault because it isn't. We have nothing to do with the reason why

12:40these people choose to violate us. It's not the way we dress. It's not something we did,

12:47but it was such a blessing that people instilled that in me without even knowing because I never

12:53carried that guilt. And that was a huge blessing for me. Our identity is not in what has happened to

13:00us. I'm not the kidnapped girl. I'm a survivor. I'm a child of God. I'm a mother. I'm a sister.

13:08I'm a daughter. I'm not what happened to me. We can be experiencing a death or grieving in something

13:16that we're getting through. It could be a job. It could be a breakup. It could be anything.

13:20But we carry it differently because we have hope for the future. Because our trials make us stronger.

13:28They make us wiser. They build our character. They give us perseverance. So we need to count it all joy

13:35when we go through these horrible things. As horrible as they are, we got to count it all joy

13:39because it's in the end going to make us whole and complete. The Mitzi Sanchez Foundation was created to

13:46teach families what to do in the event that their child goes missing. We don't know what the first

13:51steps are other than to call the police department. And even then they tell us to stay at home and

13:56not

13:57get in the way of investigation. So we teach them what they can do from home. We're there to create

14:03a

14:03flyer. We're there to put a team together to disperse the flyers throughout the city to bring the media

14:09together. We're there to bring food to feed them because we know they are not eating or shopping for

14:16toiletries and the little things that they need that they're not thinking about. So we're there to help

14:22the families in any way where we see a need. It looks different for everyone. The top three things that

14:29I would say are the most important when your child goes missing is to number one, call the police

14:34department and let them know that your child is missing. Number two is to gather things like your

14:41child's photos, one with them smiling, one with them not smiling, a toothbrush, hairbrush. We want to be

14:49able to get DNA samples for the investigators that come and visit your home when this does happen. And

14:56threes, you need a team of people to help you because you can't do it alone. My prayer for you

15:02is that you

15:03took something from what was said today because no matter what we endure, there is hope for the future.

15:12This is Mitzi Sanchez and thank you for listening to my story.

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