SURVIVED: THE SOLVED KIDNAPPING OF ABBY HERNANDEZ

you are such a genuine Jim thank you for clicking on my video I'm Brooke McKenna but today's case is a survival story about the kidnapping of Abby Hernandez now this survivor story shows you the mental strength that one human can have and it's a girl who found the ability to overcome a traumatic situation and thrive nowadays of abuse would not crush her soul her spirit and from that she got a solved case and a story for the world to look up to by the way I post so much content like this it's my absolute passion to tell these stories and I mean absolutely no harm or disrespect when I do so so if you would like to support me in that all you have to do is make sure you were subscribed down below give this video a thumbs up and leave a nice comment down below now let's get back to this story it was 2013 in New Hampshire and the Hernandez family had lived their whole lives in a place called Conway and this was zhenya who was a nurse and a single mother of Sarah and 14 year old Abby now her real name was Abigail however everybody else called her Abby she was quite a bright spirit and could make friends with basically anyone she talked to her friends would look at her to have a laugh or even to help them out with things such as guitar lessons and she could always make things such a wonderful time she was always so happy and cheerful and knew she was surrounded by people who loved her including her high school boyfriend named Jimmy who went to the same school and would treat her like a little princess and Abby was said to make big impacts in small moments everyone who knew her was grateful that they did and she was just one of those people that could light up a room anytime she walked in and ever since she was small Abby was said to be a lover of animals and be a kind gentle spirit she also was a tall boy who loved classic rock and playing sports and she was a freshman at that year at Kennett high school where she studied German and was participating in robotics as well as sports and that is where she was October 9th it was a normal school day and Abby would go to school she would meet up with her best friend Miranda and science class and they would kind of be goofing around taking a some photos when they were supposed to be learning but you know everybody does that kind of thing in high school and they were just having a good time they loved being together Miranda like I said was her best friend and they just had such a good time regardless of the situation they were in but that evening she would not come home from school and her mother zenya had heard the bus go by and knew that Abby didn't get off of it and she panicked a little bit but she had known that Abby sometimes walk home from schools sometimes would just be hanging out with her friends at the high school she had a lot going on and so Xenia was very trusting of Abby so all she did was send her a text asking if she was okay and she figured that everything would be fine however Abby would never text her back and that wasn't like Abby so zinnia decided to head to the school herself just to see if Abby was there and when she got there no high schoolers were outside hanging out so she went inside and that's where the librarian would tell her that Abby had left school a while ago and this was such a tight-knit community everybody knew everybody that she didn't even have to talk to the librarian for her to know this is Andy was Abby's mom and so when zhenia heard this panic really started to set in because she had gone to school that day and vanished a police department would be informed of this by 7:00 p.m. that evening by her mother she wasted no time and the missing persons posters were created saying that this was a Hispanic female with a light olive complexion who stood at 5-4 weighing around 118 pounds she had brown eyes and brown hair and disappeared around 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. investigators would also obtain the surveillance footage that was from the high school and they would see Abby leaving and she was wearing a gray sweatshirt with black yoga pants black heeled boots and she was carrying a backpack but she wasn't carrying like a duffel bag full of stuff that would have pointed to a possible run away days are leave at exactly at 229 p.m. she walked to the field hockey field and down eagles way and into a power line trail now her home wouldn't be too far away from the school but she would never get home and they didn't know what had happened between where they had last see her on this footage and her walk home and they began talking to Abby's friends about her behavior seeing if it changed recently if she was having a tough time if she talked about wanting to leave and start a new life and they also asked if Abby was one that would run away and every single person said no said it wasn't possible Miranda her best friend said Abby was one to face her problems not run away from them her mother said that Abby's 15th birthday was in three days and she was so excited they were planning it together they were gonna have this big party with all of her friends over and she would not have wanted to miss that it was something she was looking forward to and I wasn't like it was planned by her mother this is something she wanted to do and she was so excited about it that it just didn't make sense that she wouldn't have wanted to attend it Abby had also never not shown up at home without her mother knowing where she was now of course her mother was spiraling into the worst possible scenarios that her daughter was in and she thought maybe she'd broken her leg maybe she had appendicitis maybe she was hit by a car all of these awful situations that was what she figured had happened because there was no sign that anything else had and so she started to call all of the hospitals in the area asking if Abby was there if Abby Hernandez had checked in and they were all saying she hadn't the next day the whole community was informed by the media broadcast that were blasting Abby's picture everywhere and you know it was really shocking researching this case because the police had actually been right on top of Abby's case the entire time even though some of them still did believe that she could be a runaway she wanted to leave her family or her you know situation or her boyfriend and that she was going to come back soon when she realized she couldn't handle life on her own but that didn't stop them from searching for her many departments will label it a runaway and then just leave it alone but this department didn't in fact they were right on top of it sending pictures out to the media and starting a search party her friends and family said she wasn't into drugs or alcohol she wasn't the type to have some sort of plan that she had hidden from everybody else she also didn't have any mental health issues and so they just couldn't find a reason why it would have been a runaway and so this is why it's so important that the police continued to search even though they had their own suspicions so the search started for Abby and it was huge they had helicopters ATVs State Police FBI volunteers all searching the woods the water the air going door-to-door asking questions and hoping to get some witness statements but you know this was going nowhere they weren't giving up though they had 300 tips to sort through and they also spent the next few days searching on foot and in air for Abby and for information and they would actually have news conferences every night of the search to inform the public what they had found what they hadn't found and also to have a Zegna talk to Abby through these news news conferences in case Abby could see them and would come home if she was just a runaway or if she hadn't had something horrible happen to her that she could still have that strength knowing that her mother was searching so they would get up onto this mic and then you would say wow he was such a strong girl and that she really was hoping that someone would come forward with some sort of information because someone knew something her friends were also doing anything they could to bring Abby home and they didn't just think because of their age they were not capable of helping in fact they said that in the days leading up to Abby's disappearance she was very happy and she was even being more outspoken than she normally was she was more on the quiet side however she seemed to really be finding her confidence and being able to speak up when she wanted to and so they didn't say that this showed signs of her going into this downward spiral at all and so they ended up creating a whole compilation video of pictures of Abby and messages from her friends telling stories or just saying what they would want Abby to hear if she could possibly find this video and they would post it on YouTube as well as on a website that had been created called bring Abby home and this had a whole bunch of different messages I cannot tell you enough how much you are missed I know you probably have heard at some point that you are missed but I don't think it can be described I missing that goes on hi Abby I know I haven't seen you in a while and I wrote you a letter but first I'd really like to show you around my room because I repainted it and I redid it all I really need you back there's nobody else like you you're not only the funniest person I will probably have the ability of meeting but you make my day just by us talking but yeah we just really really miss you please be home soon the community was also bringing food to the Hernandez home because zinnia and Sarah were so preoccupied with finding this beautiful soul that was their sister and their daughter that they weren't really worried about cooking and eating so it really helped that the community would just provide them with meals that were so easy so they could still be taking care of themselves too and there were also fundraisers at this time for the community to raise money for a reward and if three days after she disappeared she was still missing and this would be her 15th birthday but instead of the big birthday bash that she had planned there was a vigil and everyone in the community would be invited to have candles and sing her happy birthday but nothing is like actually getting to sing your child the birthday song as you give them a cake and candles to blow out it was heartbreaking for zhenya and she didn't know what to do then use that at this time she was trying to remain strong especially for her other daughter and for a be who she figured you know could be going through such a horrific ordeal or could not even be still alive said it was weird because you know when a tragedy happens it's surprising that the Sun still comes up and life still goes on and you have to sit there and deal with your own despair now investigators had searched through Abby's phone and had finally gotten the phone records back and they would find that the last message she had sent would be a heart emoji her boyfriend Jimmy had sent a message saying I love you to her and at 2:53 she sent a heart emoji back however after that she never answered again that's when the phone seemed to kind of be untraceable of the last ping would be 14 minutes later at 3:07 p.m. about a mile from her house and of course because Jimmy was the last person she talked to they would talk to him about where he was and kind of get a feel for and Abbey's relationship and that is when they realized Jimmy had been on a school bus going home when he was texting Abby and they were still texting when she had disappeared and he was still on the bus so there really wasn't any way he could have gotten to her or been the reason for this and also upon inspection their relationship seemed to be a healthy and normal teenage relationship there didn't seem to be any sort of toxicity going on it would now be a month later and there was still no sign of Abby is any ahead often drove just to drive around and clear her mind to try to hold herself together and she said it was soul-sucking because she suspected everyone she looked at she said at one point she saw a girl that appeared to look a little bit like Abby she stopped the car and she started following this girl on a foot until she realized it wasn't her and had to go back to her car and her mother said that she had been putting off the little tasks that you know every human has to do because it was just too much to deal with everything and so one of those tasks had been to pick up her mail and so she will go in November 6th when she hadn't really touched her mail in a month and that is when she would find a letter postmarked October 23rd 14 days after Abby had disappeared this letter would be crucial in the investigation it said dear mom I miss you and love you so much more than you could imagine I'm sorry I did this I've seen the newspapers and TV news and to answer your questions yes I'm alive I'm safe and I'm healthy I really miss you mom but I won't tell you where I am I love you so much please stay strong for me I'm staying strong for you I've come to realize that along with love and courage hope can speak louder than fear please don't lose hope hang in there for me mom I had a dream where I come home and gave you the biggest hug ever I don't know if it matters but I like to think that it does please don't forget that I love you please give Sara a hug from me and tell her that I love and miss her very much I pray that my dreams will come true love happy now every sentence ended with a little heart and there was also a little picture she had drawn of a flower and a butterfly now a Zegna was certain that this was Abby's handwriting however some of the grammar in the way it was written just didn't sound like it came from Abby as though possibly she had been told what to say but the note said she was simply a runaway and she was sorry for doing it but was that true Xenia would later say in a news conference kind of randomly that dreams did matter and this was her way of talking to her daughter who could possibly hear this news conference in a very discreet way because investigators hadn't wanted to release the news of this letter just yet and fears that Abby had somehow been in some sort of awful situation had snuck out a letter and her abductor didn't know about it and so she could be further harmed if they realized what she had done so they waited quite a while to tell the public however when they did the public wouldn't take this very well and in fact they began to say online and in-person that Abby was some sort of runaway that had wasted the state's money on her search efforts and that she needed to pay them back he started to look at Abby as some sort of monster for leaving and it was all her fault her highschool classmates had began to say that maybe she was pregnant and didn't want anyone to know so she ran away to have the baby and no one would realize when she came back although thankfully even though everybody else in the community seemed to be against Abby and the Hernandez family the police were not and like I said this is so rare in these cases but it was a blessing and they said that he didn't have a car she didn't bring any extra clothes with her she had money at home that she didn't take with her and it just all screamed kidnapping the only problem was they still had no clues and no suspects investigators began to plead for the spread of this case to people outside of the community thinking that if she had been kidnapped that possibly she was not in the area and that's why they were not finding her and now it was six months after she had disappeared and her mother zinnia would have kind of a six-month get-together to mark that log of her disappearance and she would have friends of Abby's as well as investors come over and make posters for her and they would also be a note outside of the Hernandez home at all times welcoming Abby home as well as the porch light always being on an investigators started to think that this didn't matter because she wasn't coming home Thanksgiving of that year had passed and her family didn't get to celebrate with her and by December her mother decided to write a note and post it on they bring Abby home website in hopes that if she was just a runaway she would come home for Christmas of her mother baked her this letter would say I love you so much I hope you see this letter I hate communicating in a letter like this but it is the only way I know how to possibly get a message to you your letter was the greatest gift I ever received I thank God every day that you were alive I miss hearing your voice and your sense of humor you made me laugh so much and I miss it please call me I just want to hear your voice I so want to see you again and hug you please let me know what I can do to help you I want you to be happy I will come and get you if you need me please let me come pick you up I just want to see you again when I see you again we can start a new life and all of the attention of all of this will be a thing of the past I will do whatever it takes I just want to see you again Sarah sends big hugs she misses you too and wanted to see you again we all love you please come home for Christmas love mom she would not come home to celebrate that Christmas and it was now 2014 a new year and Abby was still missing on May 9th a $10,000 reward was offered in the FBI I had $20,000 to this and her father doubled it making it $60,000 but it was now July 20th of 2014 it was a normal Sunday Zegna was at home on the phone when she would hear the door open and she would hear a voice that she recognized but hadn't heard it a long time she ran over to see what she thought was her mind making up this person in front of her because Abby was standing there in the clothes she had disappeared in nine months later they embraced and then you realized it was actually happening this was her daughter Abby wasn't harmed physically as anyone could tell but nobody knew yet what she had been through mentally and the news spread quickly of her being found and everybody believes since it had been so long that her being found meant that her body was but that she wasn't alive but when the news spread she was alive and well even the people in the news room gasped because nobody believes that this could happen zhenia said today we are the happiest people on earth investigators but talked to Abby when she settled in a bit giving her a little bit of time to heal but she wouldn't really tell them much other than the fact that she had been abducted and they said that they needed to know more to know how all of this happened and how to get this abductor off the streets so he wouldn't do this again to somebody else and she slowly but surely started telling them the story every horrific detail but Abby wasn't wanting to talk to the public just yet they wanted to hear from her and she just wasn't ready she took a few days to just be with her family before she even spoke out about anything and that's when she would contact the Conway daily son who had been offering to have an interview with her as many people had but she said she chose them because she had seen their coverage of her search efforts and it had given her hope now this interview she would say I'm taking it a little at a time but I'm feeling a lot better every day I want to get back to writing horses I really missed that I used to do it when I was little but the most important thing that I would say is that she wanted to be treated like a normal person she would then tell the Today Show I wish that I could personally thank everyone who looked for me my gratitude is beyond words it's an incredible feeling to be home and I believe in my heart that your hopes and prayers played a major role in my release thank you all for the welcome home at this point she had not really said much about who her abductor was but then she started to tell her mom she knew a name but she couldn't tell her because she had been threatened by this man that her family would all be killed and her mom ensured her that everything would be okay that she was safe but she just couldn't say it she said the abductor was always there she said she knew his first and last name Nate Kibby who was really Nathaniel Kibby Abbie would tell the real story of what had happened she was saying that that day she had begun to walk home and she was wearing her brand-new black heeled boots when they started giving her blisters and she started to think that you know she regretted walking home she wished she would have taken the bus and that is when a car would pull up next to her and there was a man inside who looked nice he would offer her a ride and she said she knew about stranger danger but everybody in Conway was so nice and was one big close community so she didn't necessarily think anything bad was gonna happen so she got in she would decide to not give him her direct address in fact she would say you know to go to this restaurant that was nearby her house and drop her off there however this is when things would take a dark turn because his man would say that he needed to go to Home Depot and you would pull into the parking lot but he wouldn't go anywhere near the doors he would go to the very back where no other cars were parked and Abby started to get a really bad feeling and she unbuckled she was reaching for the door and that is when this man would be grabbing something in his pockets and he would pull out a gun and he would point it at her thigh and tell her that he would blow her brains out or slit her throat if she tried to escape that is when he put his baseball cap on her over her face so she couldn't see and he also handcuffed her behind her back before driving away she would be taken north through the roads to the mountains and she would actually try to look out the window through the cab at one point and she would find a pain happening in her leg and she would realize she was being tased by this man for looking out the window so at this point she started to feel the adrenaline and she knew she had to work with this guy and you have to remember this is a 14 year old girl who was going through this and realizing what she needs to do to survive and this guy started to say you know she he was going through a rough time and to just bear with him and so Abby took this as a sign that he needed some reassurance and even though you know to reassure your abductor takes a lot of mental strength she decided to tell him that she knew he was actually a good guy and that if he let her go she wouldn't tell anyone about this when she realized he wasn't going to do that she asked him if he was going to sexually assault her and his only response was to ask how old she was this is when the abductor would take Abby's phone in his hands while he was driving and break it in half so it couldn't be traced Abby started singing Amazing Grace because she had been praying and she thought maybe you've got hurt her that God would help her and so when she started singing this abductor said oh you want to listen to music you want to sing and got out his iPod and started playing his own music and this was actually the Rolling Stones and this wouldn't be a fun road trip at all because when they would finally stop he would fling Abby over his shoulder and he would take her into this room and she said it was very long I had green carpet there was a green flag I said don't tread on me there was a wall full of tools and it looked like some sort of a warehouse or shed and she would be blindfolded by tape and a t-shirt and then a motorcycle helmet she would also be gagged and there would also be a very loud metal music playing so no one could hear her screams that is when she would be sexually assaulted for the first time and her only thought was that she really wanted to live she started to pray all the time but she would never say Amen because she didn't want God to leave her and she was then told by her abductor that people were looking for her and she was able to watch one of the news conferences of her mother pleading for her return and this was the first time that Abby would cry the abductor would then tell her to write a note and make it kind of seemed like she was a runaway but she was going to do much more than that because when this abductor wasn't looking she would take her fingernails and she would scratch the words help and kidnap into the paper this was her huge huge effort to be released and to get help and that has been the abductor would come back in and say that he had found her notes and her words he would place a Taser at her feet and she said that that was the worst pain had ever felt he told her to write a new letter but this time he would be telling her exactly what to write and it would be saying she was definitely a runaway while she was tied up she was also gagged and there was a little tube that was in the corner of her mouth where she had to flip a switch to get droplets of water out and she also believed she was being watched the whole time because there was a camera in there that was always blinking I would try to talk to the man and get his name but he refused to say and he would say she needed to forget his face he would wear a mask at all the times and that she also needed to call him master but happy was an extremely strong mentally strong girl and smart as well and she decided she needed to make him trust her so she started to talk to him more and do anything he wanted to do and one of these things were to make counterfeit money together because that's what this abductor wanted to do and Abby said that he once told her that she was the closest thing to a daughter he would ever get yet he was still sexually assaulting her after some time he began to teach her things like cooking for her future man because that would be important and so after this she would be given cookbooks to look through and one of them she would find something very important because she would find a huge clue in block letters on the side of one of these books it said property of Nate Kibby she would ask him who nate kitty was and he would take a deep breath and say how do you know my name she'd also found the initials in ek on a ruler he had given her they started to get very comfortable with Abby and how he kind of started to get comfortable with him and it would stay with her and sleep in her bed and he even said that he was going to get something more humane than having her tied up in the music blaring and that he was going to get a shock collar for dogs and he would place this on her and force her to scream so she could know how it felt so she wouldn't do it again but just when Abby thought she was getting in Nate's head he started to get paranoid and one day he would come home and he would force her into the trunk of his car saying that they needed to move her and they would drive for quite a long time with Abby singing American Pie over and over again because she knew the song was about eight minutes and so she could track the time and so when the car finally stopped she was thunk back over his shoulder and placed in a room with a mattress inside and there were also screws and wires on the door and they said that they were rigged to explode if anybody opened it so if somebody came to save her she would catch on fire and die they continued to get closer though and they spent a lot of time with her he even told her how he knew how to tie her up and it was that he had spent a lot of time learning and juvie as well as prison and Abby was playing the part of a good daughter doing anything that he wanted her to do and the hardest part was keeping his trust now you may say why it was a be doing all of this you know it can be a little confusing even if you look at it for survival and the fact that she even said she was becoming comfortable in this situation well there was a sort of trauma bond happening at this point we hear a lot about Stockholm Syndrome but not about trauma bonds they are essentially the same thing the trauma bond can occur with the ongoing cycle of abuse as well as intense emotional experiences with a toxic person or with someone who was in the same toxic environment that you were in because the person that you were with in a toxic environment you may start to see them as the toxic one rather than the person who actually is due to manipulation no trauma bonds are often talked about more in toxic relationships rather than in a situation where you're captured and held against your will which is why in these cases we hear more about Stockholm Syndrome however I think since most of you hopefully won't be in a situation where you are kidnapped by talk a little more about trauma bonds so you can relate it to your own life so it makes a little more sense to you now in a trauma bond you feel as though the relationship or bond you have with this person this toxic person is normal because it's either all you've ever known or it's what you've come to deal with in this traumatic situation and you can either bomb of the people who are causing the trauma or bomb the people who have experienced the same trauma as you like I said because they are suddenly someone that you are looking at as the toxic person because the real toxic person has manipulated you into thinking that they're good and this person with you is a bad one the only problem is either way the cycle continues because either way you are continuing the toxicity because you haven't healed from it from your past and trauma bonds you can end up defending the person who is treating you so horribly even if you are complaining about how they're treating you you know it's bad but then when somebody else starts saying it's bad you start to take the blame on yourself and say that it's actually not that bad that you're the reason for that it's your fault you can even want comfort from those who abused you and chama bonds can octa me found in toxic relationships for either one of the partners are both of the partners use their past trauma and cycle it into this new relationship either because they are some sort of a toxic person that thrives on this toxicity or they're doing it unknowingly now partners that both how trauma will often connect and attach over their traumatic past and feel as though this somehow makes them more compatible and they will obsess over that compatibility and it will become a fantasy that they think that they're living with this person and reality it's a very bad situation and relationship to be in now you can often bond with trauma bonds very quickly and you will continue to find this sexual chemistry with people where you can recreate your childhood dynamics if you have trauma in your childhood until you heal from it and we're just continue to happen until you choose to get help in a way this is what Abbie was doing kind of forming a bond with her abductor because this is the traumatic situation that she had come to know and it's not something that is ever the victims fault or ever you know the people who fall into these traps of toxic relationship they can't they can't predict it because these type of people are very much manipulative or if you both have trauma in your past you are susceptible to thinking that it's normal because that's what you know and so you know when you look at it that way you kind of see a little bit more of how Abby could feel comfort and what she was going through at all because I get a lot of comments when I make these type of videos of how come she couldn't just try to run away how come she continued to be kind to this person and that's how but 284 days later she would finally be free four days after she returned home a sketch of this man would be released to the public of 33 year old Nathaniel Kibby and four days after that they would find his address he lived 30 miles away from Conway and Gorham and he lived in his mobile home all alone with American flags everywhere and a constitution or a copy of it framed on the wall and he also worked in a gun shop in Conway which is why he was there and could pick up Abbie and he made guns and he had many in his home he had left guns ever since back in high school and many from high school remembered Nathaniel as a weirdo who often bullied kids and scared them and he also had trouble with the local police going back to when he was like 18 for violence as well as manipulation he had also spent 42 days in a psych ward as a teenager for being a threat to himself but now his neighbor's completely avoided him at all ah saying that he was a gun not to believed in the zombie apocalypse it was also found that while Nathaniel had a B he had also gotten in trouble with the law and a B very well could have been found during this time because he had gotten in a car accident that March which was four months before a B would be released and I was a minor accident however he would follow this woman home that was the other driver and he would start to take pictures of her car which when when she said can you please stop doing that get off my property he would go up to her and shove her down he would be arrested in charged with criminal trespass and assault and they would take the gun he had on him at the time as well as demanding all of his other guns while he was out on bail and and Nathaniel would say it was a moral and irrational unconstitutional restriction of his civil rights however he would then call the police when he was back at home saying they could come and get all of his guns that he'd packed them all up for them and they could come get them anytime which was unlike him at all because they said he was often very confrontational and would not give up his guns for anything but they drove out there and they would find him at his curb holding a whole bunch of guns Eve backed away and he would hand them to the police little did they know that he had a missing girl on his property and that's why he didn't want them to come search it and the police had gone and had driven away but not without noticing the giant cargo container sitting on his property if this is where ABI was this was after nathaniel had moved her and driven so long away so why did it matter if they searched his property if Abby wasn't there will you see when he had driven her away saying that he needed to find her somewhere else to go he was lying he had driven in circles until he had taken her back to that same cargo container and put her in a different room she had never moved away from his property the wires were also not really rigged to explode it just make her scared and the next month Nathaniel would actually let go of his job at EMM precision Inc after five years of working there and it was said he was in good employee but he was just too slow so they let him go she wants later it was now July and Nathaniel still had a B when he would go to court for those assault and trespassing charges from the car accident and these would actually all be dropped however that same month is when Abby would walk through the door of her home after being in his presence for nine months so what happened why did he let her go well it seemed that he had no choice you see he had hired a sex worker to meet him in a local hotel and this is where he would really mess up her name was Lauren Monday and he would she would meet Nathaniel there and he would say his name was Jay and he would say he has done bad things and Lauren would say well we all have and not knowing how bad it really was and Lauren must say he was very nice to her that he played with her hair until she fell asleep and that he was really kind and when she woke up she found three $50 bills on the dresser and she immediately went to Walmart to buy some groceries and this is where the cashier would tell her to wait right there and she was like okay that's fine and she would end up in police custody because he bills were counterfeit because remember what Nathaniel had wanted to do with Abby make counterfeit money he had given Lauren this money and she called him swearing at him saying he could have at least told her and at whatever he was making his basement he needed to clean it up because they were coming for him that night Nathaniel would give Abby back the clothes she had disappeared in and he would say that he needed to take her home that's when they would stop at a local dairy queen she would wear a hat that covered her face they would have dinner and he would drive to a road it was basically a band and he would tell her to get out of the car she was so shocked but she opened the door and she got out and that's when Nathaniel yelled back at her to give him back his hat so she threw it back in the car and he sped off and she said she just sat there and laughed because she was in complete shock she didn't think she would ever be free and that's when she walked the mile to her home and she could hear her mom on the phone and she was seriously at such a loss for words and she opened the door and she called out for her mom and she was so incredibly happy to be home they would embrace just as Abby had dreamed about her letter what she had written in a letter about the dream had finally come true obviously and that her mom looked different that months of stress was wearing on her face she felt so bad and she said that when she first talked to investigators she actually told them a lie because she had been told by Nathaniel a story that she needed to tell them that of course excluded him so it would take her a while to actually feel okay enough and secure enough to tell them what really happened a week later Nathaniel Kibby would be arrested at his home and police feared with all of his guns that would be you know a shootout - however he came quietly they searched his property ten times they found firearms masks hard drive cellphones and it was July 29th and he would be held on a million dollar bail he was charged the next year with making vulgar threats to the associate attorney general during a recorded phone call before the trial actually began but these charges would be dropped and he would actually plead guilty to seven accounts of kidnapping and sexual assault and during the trial anytime someone would bring up that he threatened Abby into not telling the truth he would smile and shake his head he would be sentenced to 45 to 90 years in prison now Abby addressed him in court saying I want you to know I appreciate my freedom because of you I never look at the son the same way I never think about fresh air the same way so I will also want to thank you for giving me my freedom back some people might call you a monster but I've always looked at you as human and I want you to know that even though life became a lot harder after that I still forgive you now of course this sounds odd that she would not want to call him a monster after abducting her and that she would say that she forgives him however this goes back to what we were talking about with trauma bonds it's something that your experience is kind of skewed a bit and trauma could make you think about things and remember things far differently than anyone could ever know and people also deal with trauma extremely differently it doesn't look the same for every person the odd thing was many of the community began to say that they didn't believe Abby that she was a runaway who caused all this chaos for no reason than everything she was saying was a lie especially after what she said in court and they couldn't understand why she would be able to forgive him trauma and dealing with that is how you choose to survive and so there's not a rulebook for that it doesn't look the exact same psychologists have actually praised Abby for everything she did and everything she went through saying it's amazing that she was strategizing it is again very remarkable and again speaks of her ability to get out of her terror state and problem-solve and a former FBI profiler named Brad Garrett had said if I were going to write a textbook about how victims should deal with abductions the first chapter would be about Abby it's always about bonding to the bad guy I think Abby has since done such a beautiful job and healing from the trauma and taking everything day-to-day she appreciates every day she never takes anything for granted anymore and I think what Abby has done and what she had to say is so important for us to remember especially right now and she had said well her and her mother had said we want the world to know that horrible senseless things happen but there's hope even in the darkest times and that is possible to survive even if it's not always joyful and she would also say to anyone with extreme trauma 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 I think it's a wonderful message we all need that hope is something nobody can take away from you Abby it now has a partner and a beautiful baby and is living her life and freedom as she deserves and I'm happy to be able to tell her story I hope I did it justice and I want the world to know how brave she was and I want their will to know that they can be as brave as her so yeah that is it I wanted to do more of a survival story because I know how hard it is right now to to just live and to see everything happening and to keep hope and so I hope that this gave you a little bit of what the world is lacking and is just a more upbeat story than some we do here on this channel if you want me to do more this survived series give us a thumbs up because I truly do think they're so important to tell as well and their victims too and you know it's hard because I mean victim in the way they're survivors maybe that's the word that we should be using they're survivors too and they are brave individuals because I know and that Abby didn't necessarily want to be called a victim so she is a survivor and she is damn strong for it so don't ever forget to speak up your voice is powerful enough and I love you to absolute pieces okay [Music]

Channel: Brooke Makenna

Views: 452,730

Keywords: survived, solved, survival stories, abby hernandez, missing, missing persons cases, missing persons solved, solved missing persons, solved mysteries, solved abductions, kidnapping, solved kidnapping, Nathaniel Kibby, missing girl, letter from missing girl, taken after school, true crime, solved true crime, crime, documentary, what happened to, what really happened, escaped, escaped kidnapping, escaped from killer

Id: 2QKLSJKEtgk

Length: 48min 1sec (2881 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020