We spent our time together over the next few weeks and I was so close to being released, that I felt it. It was like we had been working toward something. It was so intense." "What was happening?" "I told you I'd been trying to find out what really happened the day of the abduction. It's obvious that both kids were taken because their parents were out of town." "No. I understand how everything made sense to you, but it doesn't make sense to me." "My mom was a drug addict and I was told my dad wasn't. I got into a relationship with a woman who introduced me to drugs and alcohol and they eventually led me to LSD." "My grandfather had already passed away but he had taken his LSD pills and then my father ended up driving him to the hospital in an ambulance. My father hated my mom. He said she was a junkie and kept her kids from him. At a certain point I stopped being allowed to see my mom, but not right away. My father didn't want me around her, but I had already gotten too far gone." "I had met a young woman who was already a prostitute and we would have group sex together. We were involved with each other and had been experimenting with other drugs. I had been smoking marijuana since I was eleven and then I moved on to alcohol. I drank so much in order to get high. The alcohol made me black out." "How can we move on?" "This is the same path your grandfather was traveling. His son told me that your grandfather smoked and drank a lot and then he had the heart attack and he continued smoking. The doctor who performed the autopsy on your grandfather never mentioned how much he had drunk." "My father would go out of his way to make things difficult for me. He was always on my case to prove myself. He hated that I was around my mother. I think that's what he had to prove." "I can see that." "I could hear him arguing with her the last time I was home. He had threatened her because I had talked to her and she asked for money. He would beat her up and I had told him not to." "I can see that he would have been upset." "She had money problems because of a string of bad luck. He would throw her money out of the window. She asked me for money when I was living at the facility. He threw it out the window." "He saw his daughter as a financial burden." "The other kids would call me a slut because of my relationship with her. I think they all thought I was some whore and the other kids really used me up. My dad was supposed to get a new job when I was eighteen but then the old man had another heart attack." "Your grandfather had a lot of anger." "I'm angry with him as well. He was an old man and he could have stopped drinking. I know he didn't want to be a drunk. I know he had so many problems in his life. I'm angry with him because he couldn't give me an opportunity to turn my life around." "It's not fair. You were just a boy." "My father would have the biggest fights with my mother. My grandfather was a pretty difficult guy. He didn't like me going to bed late and he didn't like that I was in this relationship with the prostitute. The prostitute introduced me to heroin and it had such a strong effect on me that it was unbelievable. I thought I was going crazy." "Maybe it was a good thing your grandfather had a heart attack." "I don't know how I ever went on living after he died." "I'm sure it had to be terrible for you." "I knew he was dead. I was at school one day. I found out from a friend of the family who told me that he had died. My mother was always very dramatic and she took me to see him." "What did he say to you?" "He was on a bed and I was told to go over and kiss him. He was very still and seemed to be sitting up in a bed. He told me he would be gone by the next time I saw him. It was as if he could read my mind. He also told me something about a big secret. He told me to keep my mouth shut about it. When he said it, he looked right at me. He also looked over at his other children in the room." "Do you think he knew your mother was an addict and that he would have done something to you if you had stayed there with him?" "He died because he was in a bad relationship. Maybe he really loved my mother and didn't want to hurt her. I can only imagine how it felt to have all that rage and hatred. He gave her so much pain when he died." "You said he died in April of that year." "My brother tried to explain a lot of things to me in order for me to understand the situation. The prostitute I was in a relationship with was an addict. I would do drugs with her before the day and we would do them after the day as well. The guy who was supposed to kill me went back into the room where we had the group sex and stabbed him." "I don't know if I can go on." "I have to know who the man was who approached my mother on the day of the abduction." "I'm sorry. It's so difficult for me to hear this stuff. I wish I had come along with you from the very beginning." "The man who took my sister made her stand in front of a wall as though she was part of a painting. He was giving the painting orders. Then I saw him with my mother. He was holding her hand and they looked as though they were in love. He took her away and they disappeared out of my sight." "My mother was such a strong woman, it was hard to imagine that she could have ever been weak." "You may not believe me, but I believe that it was my grandfather who took my sister. It all adds up. It's like a puzzle that I can't figure out. My grandfather hated both of us. I was taken because of my mother and I know that's why he took me." "Why?" "My mother wouldn't have been able to escape. She would have done anything to protect her daughters." "You don't have to continue." "After my sister was gone my mother was free to leave. I want to believe that. I need to believe it." "I am with you." "I went back to my aunt's house with the prostitute. I got into more trouble there and I got thrown out of the house. I ran away from the home my aunt lived in and I wound up with a guy in Florida." "I had a boyfriend and he was an addict. I knew he was sick and I didn't want him to control me. I was a kid and he wouldn't let me make up my own mind. When I said I was going out with my friends he started yelling at me. He couldn't control himself. He could yell and scream at me for a long time before his friends would try to stop him. They were big guys, but I went over to the window and said, 'You try me. I'll show you what a grown woman can do.' He threw his beer bottle against the door. It fell to the ground and broke. I broke a glass. I didn't want to stay there anymore and I went to my friend's place." "Your boyfriend came after you?" "I ran out the door and he took my purse. I screamed for help but I didn't have any money. He held me down and raped me in the middle of a busy street." "How did you escape?" "The man who had given me the keys to his apartment saw that I was screaming and told me to get out of the car." "That must have been a scary time." "I never told anyone what my boyfriend had done." "Where did you go?" "I was pregnant when I got there." "Did you have a boy or girl?" "A boy. I put him up for adoption and I couldn't name him." "There were no other options?" "No." "What did you do after that?" "I worked as a waitress. I hated being pregnant and I hated the people I had to serve." "How did you meet your ex-husband?" "He was one of the guys who looked after me. He helped me to feel good about myself. I was getting so low on myself that I went back to my mother." "I'm sorry." "He didn't talk about himself. I knew very little about him. He was very good to me. He loved me as much as I loved him. He told me that he was an only child. He didn't have any family." "You didn't have any kids?" "No. It's the last thing I would have wanted. What kind of life is that? My brother said that my grandfather had taken his son. The only thing