The missing 16-year-old California teen, who officials have been searching for since Aug. 4, was found Saturday evening and will be reunited with her father Sunday in an Idaho hospital.
James DiMaggio, 40, was shot and killed by an FBI agent Saturday when they finally located him in Idaho wilderness with Hannah Anderson, the girl he kidnapped.
Law officials had been on a manhunt for DiMaggio for six days after they found Hannah’s mother, 44-year-old Christina Anderson, and her brother, 8-year-old Ethan Anderson, killed in a fire started in DiMaggio’s home outside of San Diego last Sunday. DiMaggio was a close family friend of the Anderson’s and was believed to have had a special romantic interest in Hannah.
According to LA Times, a man on horseback saw DiMaggio and Hannah hiking Wednesday at a campsite 40 miles outside of Cascade, Idaho. When he got home and received the Amber Alert about Hannah, he realized what he had seen and contacted police.
DiMaggio’s car was then spotted outside the same campsite Friday. DiMaggio was an experienced outdoorsmen so police were not surprised that he had taken Hannah into an area of such dense wilderness. Almost 250 law enforcement personnel searched the area before they finally spotted the couple from an airplane Saturday.
Hannah appeared unharmed when she was rescued but is being observed at a hospital in Idaho, where her and her father, Brett Anderson, will be reunited Sunday.
"This was a homicide suspect that was in a very rugged area and we have a 16-year-old girl who we wanted to bring home safely,” said Ada County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Andrea Dearden, http://www.kpho.com/story/23102399/kidnapped-teen-hannah-anderson-to-reunite-with-dad-sunday>KPHO reports. “That is what we wanted. We wanted it to end safely. We wanted her home and that's exactly what happened.”