After a month and a half without a computer, I finally get one of my machines returned by the FBI and immediately get attacked for "letting my daughter be kidnapped". I was told that I only posted about it online because I was seeking attention. For fuck's sake. You have to have a lot of nerve to make fun of someone else's tragedy like that.
I didn't post the blog or the bulletin for attention. I posted it because I was desperate to find my missing child...and it turns out that it helped. The police were receiving tips from people who saw my bulletin and called in to report sightings of my daughter...and that was one thing that freaked her abductor out enough to make him turn himself over to the authorities. Thank you to everyone who did that.
You don't know what it's like to go through something like that until it...gods forbid...happens to you. I felt useless. The police kept telling me not to leave the house unless I absolutely had to in case a call came into my house. I couldn't go out looking for her. I couldn't do anything. So...once I had badgered the police to the point where they really don't like me much anymore, called the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and made a report, and griped to the FBI enough to get them in on the case even though it was only two days old at the time...I was left with nothing to do other than to put the word out over the phone and online and pray.
I yelled at the FBI enough to get them to come get my computers...hoping that they would contain clues about this person whom my daughter had spoken to a few times online after being introduced to him by one of her friends. If I had wanted online attention due to this, why would I have been so overly willing to hand over EVERY computer in my house to the authorities? I couldn't have reveled in much of the damn attention that I supposedly craved without access to the internet, could I?
Anyway...now that I've griped about that for a few minutes, on to bigger and better things.
We were extremely lucky to get her back.
The guy who did this spent the holidays in jail and only one of my computers was returned because the other one is being held for trial by the prosecuting attorney. He won't be seeing the light of day for a long long time...unless you count the light that filters into his jail cell through a little barred window.
My daughter is volunteering at the local church food bank...making new friends...and looking forward to moving away from the memories this episode has created.
And I'm back. Larger than life and just as much of a pain in the ass.
I have been blessed.
Good times.
