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Kidnapping Victim Made To Play Russian Roulette

Michelle Toh |
October 9, 2013 | 7:58 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Hannah Anderson was rescued by FBI officials in the Idaho wilderness on Aug. 10. (Creative Commons)
Hannah Anderson was rescued by FBI officials in the Idaho wilderness on Aug. 10. (Creative Commons)
Sixteen-year-old Hannah Anderson revealed new details of her kidnapping ordeal with suspect James Lee DiMaggio in a "Today" show interview set to air Thursday, saying that he handcuffed her, bound her feet with a zip tie and ordered her to play Russian roulette.

After DiMaggio took Anderson to his house on Aug. 3, she said, he sat her down on the couch and "told me he was going to kidnap me and take me to Idaho, where my intention was just to carry his backpacks to the river. And that he was gonna live there. And then he'd get me home afterwards.”

She started crying when he made her play Russian roulette, saying she "was freaking out."

"And he said, 'Do you want to play?' And I said, 'No.' And I started crying and then he's like, 'Okay.' And he stopped."

DiMaggio told Anderson that her mother, Christina, and 8-year-old brother, Ethan, were alive in another part of the house. He had been a longtime friend of the family's.

Anderson said she was "sick, disgusted" and "angry" at the thought of DiMaggio, who was later charged with the murder of both Christina and Ethan.

They were both later found dead at DiMaggio's Boulevard home east of San Diego, where the Andersons had resided in the Lakeside community. The mother had been bludgeoned in the head at least a dozen times, bound and gagged before officials found her body, according to a medical examiner's report. The son's body had been burned so badly that it took days to identifyhim, only confirmed after carrying out a DNA test. 

The interview was held just two days after the Idaho coroner confirmed that DiMaggio was killed after being hit by six gunshots by FBI agents this summer. The shootout occurred Aug. 10, after his campsite was spotted by horseback riders in the Idaho wilderness near Cascade and Morehead Lake, culminating a massive six-state manhunt staged in Anderson's weeklong kidnapping.

The interview also comes after the announcement of a book that questions Anderson's story, written by crime profiler Chelsea Hoffman, who has analyzed other high-profile kidnapping cases.

"I can't really think of any notable survivors of kidnappings that shared the same behavior as she has," Hoffman told ABC, adding that she found Anderson's case suspicious.

Days after her rescue, Anderson answered questions from the public on social media about the ordeal and in late August appeared in an interview on the "Today" show for the first time. She also made brief appearances at local fundraising events in Lakeside. 

A psychologist told ABC that expressing herself and interacting with others on the Internet is Anderson's way of dealing with the trauma.

Hoffman isn't the only one who has raised questions about Anderson's story. When an online poster asked why she never ran away from DiMaggio, she responded: “How do you know he never had me handcuffed... Because there you are wrong. Don’t assume things you don’t know. Just stop.”

Reach Executive Producer Michelle Toh here.



 

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