Kidnapping suspect James Lee DiMaggio and 16-year-old Hannah Anderson stood out as obvious greenhorns in the Idaho backcountry.
“They were just like a square peg going in a round hole,” ex-Sheriff Mark John told reporters. “He might have been an outdoorsman in California, but he was not an outdoorsman in Idaho.”
[h=4]AP[/h][h=4]James Lee DiMaggio, 40, and Hannah Anderson, 16, had been missing since Aug. 4, when investigators discovered the bodies of Hannah’s mother and brother in the rubble of DiMaggio’s burning home.[/h]
John was out for a horseback ride on Wednesday with wife Christa and another couple, Mike and Mary Young, when they spotted DiMaggio and Hannah in the woods of central Idaho. They described the bizarre encounter on Sunday during a news conference in Boise.
Mike Young said Hannah seemed frightened.
[h=4]Nelvin C. Cepeda/AP[/h][h=4]Addressing reporters in Boise, witnesses, from left to right, Mary Young, Mike Young, Mark John and Christa John described the strange encounter that led to the rescue of 16-year-old Hannah Anderson and death of suspected kidnapper and killer James Lee DiMaggio.[/h]
"I seen a lot of fear in her eyes," Young told Good Morning America. "And I didn't like what I seen in his eyes."
The riders had yet to see widespread news reports, Amber Alerts or wanted posters identifying DiMaggio as the target of a massive manhunt when they went out that day. All John and his crew knew was the two were out of place.
[h=4]Joe Jaszewski/AP[/h][h=4]FBI agents wait to board a Blackhawk helicopter at the Cascade Airport during a search for James Lee DiMaggio on Saturday in Cascade, Idaho.[/h]
They had little gear — no hiking boots, no rain gear. What they did have looked brand new. The girl wore pajama pants, and neither seemed eager to join the friendly banter customary of chance encounters on the trail.
“They just didn’t fit,” John said.
[h=4]Robby Milo/ASSOCIATED PRESS[/h][h=4]James Lee DiMaggio's car is towed to the town of Cascade, Idaho, after detectives finished searching it on a trailhead bordering the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho.[/h]
RELATED: HANNAH ANDERSON, ABDUCTED CALIFORNIA TEEN, FOUND ALIVE AFTER DEADLY SHOOTOUT
The little DiMaggio said also seemed odd. He claimed they were headed to the Salmon River, but he and Hannah were hiking the wrong way.
[h=4]Andrew Spanswick/AP[/h][h=4]James Lee DiMaggio sprawls out in the Ten Lake's region of Yosemite National Park, Calif.[/h]
At the same time, law enforcement agents were scouring the western half of the country in search of the pair. Authorities had discovered the bodies of Hannah’s mother, Christina Anderson, and her 8-year-old brother, Ethan Anderson, on Aug. 4 inside DiMaggio’s burning home in rural Boulevard, Calif., near the Mexican border.
Suspicion quickly focused on the 40-year-old family friend who was said to be like an uncle to the children of Christina and Brett Anderson.
[h=4]Andrew Spanswick/AP[/h][h=4]Friend Andrew Spanswick, right, and James Lee DiMaggio, left, pose during a camping trip in the Ten Lake's region of Yosemite National Park, Calif.[/h]
Hannah’s friends revealed the California teen was secretly “creeped out” by DiMaggio, who had confessed to harboring a crush on the underage girl.
John and his companions returned home after their ride and recognized the strange pair in news reports about the search.
[h=4]Andrew Spanswick/AP[/h][h=4]James Lee DiMaggio didn’t learn enough hiking in the Ten Lake's region of Yosemite National Park, Calif., to impress horseback riders who spotted him in the Idaho wilderness.[/h]
Using information from the riders, authorities refocused their hunt on the southwest corner of wilderness in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, a 2.3 million-acre backcountry preserve.
Searchers spotted DiMaggio’s campsite from the air on Saturday. Helicopters then delivered two specialized FBI teams into the woods about 2.5 miles away. Members moved in by ground, eventually killing DiMaggio in a shootout. Hannah, who was not physically injured, was taken to an undisclosed hospital and later reunited with her father.
[h=4]Andrew Spanswick/AP[/h][h=4]James Lee DiMaggio visited a restaurant in West Hollywood, Calif., not long before he led authorities on a weeklong manhunt.[/h]
DiMaggio appears to have followed a dark and familiar path. Saturday was the 18th anniversary of the suicide of his father, James Everett DiMaggio, whose criminal past was eerily similar.
RELATED: GRANDPARENTS OF HANNAH ANDERSON ‘SHOCKED’ BY ABDUCTOR’S IDENTITY
[h=4]HANDOUT/REUTERS[/h][h=4]Police found James Lee DiMaggio's car covered with brush and stripped of license plates at a trailhead at the edge of a wilderness preserve in central Idaho.[/h]
The elder DiMaggio beat two acquaintances with a baseball bat during a meth-fueled hotel attack in 1989, but it was his infatuation with an ex-girlfriend’s teenage daughter that sounded frightening echoes nearly two decades later.
The daughter, now grown up and speaking to CBS 8, said she was 16 in 1988 when DiMaggio’s father said he loved her and wanted to take her away to a better life. When she refused, he busted into her home, wearing a ski mask, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and handcuffs.
[h=4]Joe Jaszewski/AP[/h][h=4]A massive law enforcement search of the western United States ended on Saturday when specialized FBI teams rescued Hannah Anderson, 16, and fatally shot kidnapping and murder suspect James Lee DiMaggio in the Idaho wilderness.[/h]
“When I saw the name, I seriously, my heart stopped for a second,” the woman said.
DiMaggio’s father held the woman and her boyfriend at gunpoint in the home in El Cajon, Calif.
[h=4]STRINGER/Reuters[/h][h=4]Mike Young (l-r), Mark John and Christa John, all from Sweet, Idaho, knew something was wrong with the man and teenage girl they spotted during a backcountry horseback ride.[/h]
“I asked him not to kill us, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing,’” she said.
She eventually escaped by asking to use the bathroom, and DiMaggio’s father fled.
The woman was a classmate of the younger DiMaggio, then a 16-year-old boy she knew as Jimmy, at El Cajon High School. He delivered a message from his father one day at school.
“I was walking to my locker, and his son said, ‘My dad is out, and he said to let you know he’ll be waiting for you after school,’” the woman said.
RELATED: FRIEND: KIDNAPPING SUSPECT HAD CRUSH ON MISSING TEEN
She quit school that day, changed her name and later became a nurse.
She said she’s praying for Hannah.
“I think this girl’s a strong girl, and if she keeps her wits and goes with the program, she can make it out,” the woman said. “I feel so horrible.”
Brett Anderson said in a release to the media he was relieved his daughter was safe.
Hannah Darby, a close friend of Hannah Anderson, was looking forward to a reunion.
“I’m probably going to make a really big basket with all of her favorite things in it,” she said. “It will have candy and things that are pink.”
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“They were just like a square peg going in a round hole,” ex-Sheriff Mark John told reporters. “He might have been an outdoorsman in California, but he was not an outdoorsman in Idaho.”
John was out for a horseback ride on Wednesday with wife Christa and another couple, Mike and Mary Young, when they spotted DiMaggio and Hannah in the woods of central Idaho. They described the bizarre encounter on Sunday during a news conference in Boise.
Mike Young said Hannah seemed frightened.
"I seen a lot of fear in her eyes," Young told Good Morning America. "And I didn't like what I seen in his eyes."
The riders had yet to see widespread news reports, Amber Alerts or wanted posters identifying DiMaggio as the target of a massive manhunt when they went out that day. All John and his crew knew was the two were out of place.
They had little gear — no hiking boots, no rain gear. What they did have looked brand new. The girl wore pajama pants, and neither seemed eager to join the friendly banter customary of chance encounters on the trail.
“They just didn’t fit,” John said.
RELATED: HANNAH ANDERSON, ABDUCTED CALIFORNIA TEEN, FOUND ALIVE AFTER DEADLY SHOOTOUT
The little DiMaggio said also seemed odd. He claimed they were headed to the Salmon River, but he and Hannah were hiking the wrong way.
At the same time, law enforcement agents were scouring the western half of the country in search of the pair. Authorities had discovered the bodies of Hannah’s mother, Christina Anderson, and her 8-year-old brother, Ethan Anderson, on Aug. 4 inside DiMaggio’s burning home in rural Boulevard, Calif., near the Mexican border.
Suspicion quickly focused on the 40-year-old family friend who was said to be like an uncle to the children of Christina and Brett Anderson.
Hannah’s friends revealed the California teen was secretly “creeped out” by DiMaggio, who had confessed to harboring a crush on the underage girl.
John and his companions returned home after their ride and recognized the strange pair in news reports about the search.
Using information from the riders, authorities refocused their hunt on the southwest corner of wilderness in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, a 2.3 million-acre backcountry preserve.
Searchers spotted DiMaggio’s campsite from the air on Saturday. Helicopters then delivered two specialized FBI teams into the woods about 2.5 miles away. Members moved in by ground, eventually killing DiMaggio in a shootout. Hannah, who was not physically injured, was taken to an undisclosed hospital and later reunited with her father.
DiMaggio appears to have followed a dark and familiar path. Saturday was the 18th anniversary of the suicide of his father, James Everett DiMaggio, whose criminal past was eerily similar.
RELATED: GRANDPARENTS OF HANNAH ANDERSON ‘SHOCKED’ BY ABDUCTOR’S IDENTITY
The elder DiMaggio beat two acquaintances with a baseball bat during a meth-fueled hotel attack in 1989, but it was his infatuation with an ex-girlfriend’s teenage daughter that sounded frightening echoes nearly two decades later.
The daughter, now grown up and speaking to CBS 8, said she was 16 in 1988 when DiMaggio’s father said he loved her and wanted to take her away to a better life. When she refused, he busted into her home, wearing a ski mask, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and handcuffs.
“When I saw the name, I seriously, my heart stopped for a second,” the woman said.
DiMaggio’s father held the woman and her boyfriend at gunpoint in the home in El Cajon, Calif.
“I asked him not to kill us, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing,’” she said.
She eventually escaped by asking to use the bathroom, and DiMaggio’s father fled.
The woman was a classmate of the younger DiMaggio, then a 16-year-old boy she knew as Jimmy, at El Cajon High School. He delivered a message from his father one day at school.
“I was walking to my locker, and his son said, ‘My dad is out, and he said to let you know he’ll be waiting for you after school,’” the woman said.
RELATED: FRIEND: KIDNAPPING SUSPECT HAD CRUSH ON MISSING TEEN
She quit school that day, changed her name and later became a nurse.
She said she’s praying for Hannah.
“I think this girl’s a strong girl, and if she keeps her wits and goes with the program, she can make it out,” the woman said. “I feel so horrible.”
Brett Anderson said in a release to the media he was relieved his daughter was safe.
Hannah Darby, a close friend of Hannah Anderson, was looking forward to a reunion.
“I’m probably going to make a really big basket with all of her favorite things in it,” she said. “It will have candy and things that are pink.”
With News Wire Services
[email protected]
On a mobile device? Click here to see the video.