On New Year’s Day 2002, 13-year-old Alicia Kozakiewicz disappeared from her suburban Pennsylvania home following a family dinner. Suspicions that Alicia may have been lured by someone she had met while chatting on the Internet proved to be true.
For four days, Alicia was held captive in the basement by a 38-year-old computer programmer whom she met in an online chat room months earlier. The horrific images of Alicia’s were posted on the Internet by her abductor. Authorities were able to track her to a townhouse in Virginia where they found her chained to the floor with a locked collar around her neck in what Alicia describes as a “dungeon”.
Alicia originally developed a close online relationship with “Christine,” whom she believed was a 14-year-old girl with long, red hair Later she learned that “Christine” was a 42-year-old man, but she still stayed friends with “Christine”.
Eventually, “Christine” introduced her to the man who would become her abductor. Alicia’s abductor is presently serving out a 20-year prison sentence. She considers herself “one of the lucky ones,” and she dedicated the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s 2007 Courage Award to the many children who were killed or are still missing
