A teenage abduction victim who disappeared without trace before returning to her family home nine months later wearing the identical clothes from when she was seized claims that ‘cooperating with’ her captor was what kept her alive.
Abby Hernandez was just 14 when she was snatched whilst making her way home from school in North Conway, New Hampshire, leaving officers mystified about her whereabouts.
The hunt in 2013 became amongst the most extensive in the state’s history as the local community struggled to comprehend what had befallen the Kennett High School pupil.
What nobody realised was that responsibility rested entirely with one neighbour.
The horrifying truth was that Nathaniel Kibby had abducted and concealed the teenager merely 30 miles north of Conway, keeping her captive in a storage unit where she suffered relentless sexual abuse and torment, reports the Mirror US.
Abby told ABC that her survival instincts activated immediately upon being taken: “I remember thinking to myself ”Okay, I got to work with this guy’. I said (to him) ‘I don’t judge you for this. If you let me go, I won’t tell anybody about this’.
“I remember I never said ‘amen’ in my mind,” Abby said. “I never wanted to end my prayers because I didn’t want God to leave me. I just really wanted to live.”
Abby tactically forged a connection with her abductor. “I told him: ‘Look, you don’t seem like a bad person. Like, everybody makes mistakes. If you let me go, I won’t tell anybody about this’.”
This strategy proved successful, and he began to trust her more, allowing her to produce counterfeit money in his home.
She said: “Part of how I gained his trust, I guess, was… I went along with whatever he wanted to do.”
Clinical psychologist Rebecca Bailey praised Abby’s tactic as extraordinary. She said: “It’s amazing that she was strategising. It is, again, very remarkable and, again, speaks of her ability to get out of her terror state and problem-solve.”
Abby’s decision would prove crucial when her captor started giving her books to read, and one day, she found her captor’s name written in a cookbook he had handed her. “I said, ‘Who’s Nate Kibby?’ And he just kind of breathed and he said ‘How do you know my name?'”.
Eventually, months later, Kibby released Abby fearing the police were about to visit his home due to a counterfeiting investigation. Lauren Munday, who claimed to have met Kibby online, said he gave her three $50 bills to help pay for a hotel room, telling police she discovered one of the bills was fake.
Munday told 20/20: “So, I told him, ‘Whatever you’re ——- making in your damn basement, you better clean it up right now, because they are coming for your —.”
Kibby made Abby promise not to disclose his identity to anyone, then drove her back to North Conway and released her where she was taken nine months earlier and she walked the remaining mile to her mother’s home in the exact clothes she left in.
“I remember looking up and laughing, just being so happy,” Abby said. “Oh my God, this actually happened. I’m a free person. I never thought it would happen to me, but I’m free.”
Abby provided the police with Kibby’s name and location, leading to his guilty plea on seven felony counts, including kidnapping and sexual assault. He is now serving a life sentence of 45 to 90 years outside of New Hampshire.
“If I were going to write a textbook about how victims should deal with abductions… the first chapter would be about Abby,” stated former FBI profiler and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett. “It’s always about bonding to the bad guy.”
Despite her ordeal changing her, Abby has found a new appreciation for life: “Every time I go outside now, I really try to appreciate sunlight and fresh air. It really went in my lungs differently… I really try to never take that for granted.
“Just don’t lose hope… even when you feel like you’ve lost everything, hope is something that nobody can take away from you. And just keep that. And it’ll keep you going.”