This is a list of notable child abuse cases in which children were illegally imprisoned for multiple years.
Cases of children imprisoned by relatives
* Alba Nidia Alvarez, Mariquita, Colombia, 25 years, discovered in March 2009.
* "Anna", Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, United States, 6 years, discovered on 6 February 1938.
* Jeffrey Baldwin, Toronto, Canada, 4 years, discovered November 30, 2002.
*
Jürgen Bartsch
Jürgen Bartsch (born Karl-Heinz Sadrozinski; November 6, 1946 – April 28, 1976) was a West German serial killer who murdered four boys aged between 8 and 13 and attempted to kill a fifteen year old boy. The case of this sexual offender was th ...
Sheffield incest case
The Sheffield incest case concerns the conviction in November 2008 in Sheffield Crown Court of a 54-year-old English man who, undetected over a period of 25 years, committed repeated rapes of his two daughters and fathered seven surviving child ...
, United Kingdom, 25 years, discovered in November 2008.
* Schollenberger Case, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 10 years, discovered in May 2020.
* "M" and her children, Moe, Victoria, Australia, 28 years, discovered in February 2007.
* "Laura" Mongelli, Turin, Italy, 25 years.
*
Blanche Monnier
Blanche Monnier (; 1 March 1849 – 13 October 1913), often known in France as ''la Séquestrée de Poitiers'' (roughly, "The Confined Woman of Poitiers"), was a woman from Poitiers, France, who was secretly kept locked in a small room by her a ...
, Poitiers, France, 25 years.
*
Turpin case
The Turpin case involved the child maltreatment, maltreatment of children and dependent adults by their parents, David and Louise Turpin of Perris, California, U.S. The ages of the 13 Crime victim, victims ranged from 2 years old to 29. On Janua ...
Murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes (4 January 2014 – 17 June 2020) was a six-year-old child living in the West Midlands, England who was abused and subsequently killed by his carers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The boy was mistreated over the course of s ...
, Solihull, West Midlands, England, 1 year, discovered in June 2020.
Cases of abduction
*
Junko Furuta
was a Japanese high school student who was abducted, raped, tortured and then subsequently murdered. Her case was called the , due to her body being discovered in a concrete drum. The abuse was mainly perpetrated by four male teenagers (Hiros ...
* Jayme Closs, kidnapped after her parents' murder and held for 88 days.
*
Murder of Sylvia Likens
Sylvia Marie Likens (January 3, 1949 – October 26, 1965) was an American teenager who was tortured and murdered by her caregiver, Gertrude Baniszewski, many of Baniszewski's children, and several of their neighborhood friends. This abuse in ...
, a teenager tortured and repeatedly held captive in the basement by her caretaker and her children and their friends for three months.
*
Jaycee Dugard
The United States Junior Chamber, also known as the Jaycees, JCs or JCI USA, is a leadership training, service organization and civic organization for people between the ages of 18 and 40. It is a branch of Junior Chamber International (JCI ...
, kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido, Antioch, California, USA, 18 years, 2 months, 16 days.
*
John Jamelske
John Thomas Jamelske (born May 9, 1935) is an American serial rapist-kidnapper who, from 1988 to his apprehension in 2003, kidnapped a series of girls and women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in DeWitt, ...
, serial rapist-kidnapper who, from 1988 to his apprehension in 2003, kidnapped a series of girls and women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in DeWitt, a suburb of Syracuse, New York, United States. All 5 of his victims were from different ethnic origins and most from different age groups.
*
Shawn Hornbeck Shawn may refer to:
* Shawn (given name)
* Shawn (surname)
See also
* Sean
* Shaun Shaun is an anglicized spelling of the Irish name Seán. Alternative spellings include Shawn, Sean and Shawne.
Notable persons with the given name include:
Pe ...
and Ben Ownby, kidnapper
Michael J. Devlin
Michael John Devlin (born November 19, 1965)Tanya Nicole Kach, kidnapper Thomas Hose, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA, 10 years.
*
Natascha Kampusch
Natascha Maria Kampusch (born 17 February 1988) is an Austrian author and former talk show host. At the age of 10, on 2 March 1998, she was abducted and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil for more than eight years, unt ...
, kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil, Vienna, Austria, 8 years, 5 months.
* Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, kidnapper Ariel Castro, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 9 to 11 years.
* Katya Martynova and Lena Samokhina, kidnapper Viktor Mokhov, Skopin, Ryazan, Russia, 3 to 4 years.
* Anna Saito, kidnapper Kabu Terauchi, Higashi-Nakano, Tokyo, Japan, 2 years.
*
Fusako Sano
(born November 28, 1980) is a Japanese woman who was kidnapped at age nine by , and held in captivity for nine years and two months from November 13, 1990, to January 28, 2000. In Japan, the case is also known as the .
Abduction
Fusako Sano, t ...
Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Ann Gilmour (née Smart; born November 3, 1987) is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She gained national attention at age 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. ...
, kidnappers Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, Salt Lake City, Utah, and San Diego County, California, USA, 9 months.
*
Steven Stayner
Steven Gregory Stayner (April 18, 1965September 16, 1989) was an American kidnapping victim. On December 4, 1972, seven-year-old Stayner was abducted in Merced, California, by child molester Kenneth Parnell. He was held by his abductor away in Ma ...
, kidnappers Kenneth Parnell and Ervin Murphy, Merced, California, USA, 7 years.
*
Alicia Kozakiewicz
Alicia Kozakiewicz ( ; born 1988) is an Americans, American Celebrity, television personality, motivational speaker, and Internet safety and missing persons Child protection, advocate. Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Alicia Project, an advocacy ...
, kidnapper Scott Tyree, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 4 days.
Sexual slavery of minors
*
Kidwelly sex cult
The Kidwelly sex cult was a cult that operated in the Wales, Welsh town of Kidwelly that raped children for decades until its perpetrators were arrested in 2010. Known by its members as simply "The Church", its leader Colin Batley psychologically ...
*
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American sex offender and financier. Epstein, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, began his professional life by teaching at the Dalton School in Manhattan, des ...
Kaspar Hauser
Kaspar Hauser (30 April 1812 – 17 December 1833) was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Hauser's claims, and his subsequent death from a stab wound to his left breast, sparked much debate an ...
, Nuremberg, Germany, 16 years.
* Marvin L. Maple, arrested in 2009 for kidnapping his grandchildren, 20 years earlier.
*
Colleen Stan
Colleen J. Stan (born December 31, 1956) is an American woman who was kidnapped and held as a sex slave by Cameron and Janice Hooker in their Red Bluff, California home for over seven years, between 1977 and 1984. At Cameron Hooker's trial, Sta ...
, an American woman who was kidnapped and held captive between 1977 and 1984.
* Alexander Komin, Vyatskiye Polyany, Kirov Oblast, Russia.