Missing people who were eventually found: A thread 🧵 1. In May 2019, Amanda Eller was lost for 17 days in Maui's…

Missing people who were eventually found: A thread 🧵 1. In May 2019, Amanda Eller was lost for 17 days in Maui's forests after a short hike went wrong. Without a phone, food, or water, she got lost after straying from the trail. Despite severe sunburn, leg injuries, and losing her shoes, she survived on berries, stream water, and sleeping in leaves. A rescue helicopter finally found her atop a waterfall.

2. In 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped while waiting for the school bus. Eighteen years later, a parole officer discovered Jaycee when investigating her abductor, Phillip Garrido, and his wife. Jaycee had been forced to bear two children for Garrido and had been kept for years in a series of tents and sheds in Garrido’s backyard. She had been trained not to talk about her real life but to pretend that she and her daughters were all Nancy’s children instead.

3. Natasha Anne Ryan disappeared from Rockhampton, Queensland, in 1998 at age 14. Initially, police didn’t take it seriously, as she had run away with her 21-year-old boyfriend, Scott Black, a month earlier. Fears grew when several women went missing in the area, and in 1999, serial killer Leonard John Fraser confessed to killing Natasha, though her body was never found. Her family held a memorial in 2001. However, during Fraser’s 2003 trial, Natasha was found alive, hiding at her boyfriend’s house, where she had been living voluntarily since her disappearance. She even testified, confirming she never met Fraser.

4. On January 21, 1987, Gabriel Nagy, the father of two, disappeared after withdrawing money from his bank. There were no clues as to his whereabouts for 23 years. All that is known is that he suffered a severe blow to the back of the head that left him with total amnesia. Eventually, he recalled his real name and applied for a Medicare card, which brought him to the attention of a constable who had never given up looking for him.

5. Brenda Heist disappeared after dropping her kids off at school in February 2002. Eleven years later, she was found in Key West, Florida. Investigators said she was upset about an upcoming divorce. Brenda survived by joining a group of homeless people, living in tents and under bridges, and eating scraps of food.

6. In 2002, a Waffle House employee left home after an argument with her mother and never returned. Police investigated, especially after another Waffle House worker, Heather Sellers, vanished weeks later. They suspected Sellers' boyfriend, linked to a previous murder, might have killed both women. Six years later, the boyfriend's case appeared on a true crime show, and a viewer recognized the supposed victim, Whitaker, as her neighbor. Whitaker had simply started a new life but eventually reunited with her family.

7. Lula Cora Hood was a single mother of four in Illinois who, reportedly suffering from mental illness, had her sister adopt her kids but remained active in their lives. Then, in 1970, after a heated family argument, Hood disappeared. When she didn’t come back, her family grew worried. Unfortunately, there were no clues as to what could have happened to her until 1996 when a skeleton was found in a neighborhood brickyard. It was assumed that these remains were Lula’s. Then, in 2011, 84-year-old Lula was located in Jacksonville, Florida. The skeleton in the brickyard remains a mystery.

8. Seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke survived the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash in 1971. After the plane was struck by lightning, she was ejected and fell 2 miles still strapped to her seat. She survived the next 11 days alone in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest until she was rescued by local lumberjacks after finding their camp.

9. In 2022, two boys went missing while trying to catch birds in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. After eight days, the official search was called off, but 260 volunteers continued searching around the clock. Nearly four weeks later, a man cutting wood discovered the boys 6 km (3.7 miles) from their village.

10. At 14, Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home by Brian David Mitchell and held captive for nine months, enduring abuse from Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Her younger sister, who witnessed the abduction, later recognized Mitchell's voice as someone who had done odd jobs for the family. After the case was featured on "America's Most Wanted," Mitchell was identified, and Smart was rescued.

11. Tanya Nicole Kach-McCrum is an American woman who was held captive for ten years by Thomas Hose, a security guard who worked at the school she attended. On February 10, 1996, she was confined to his home, locked in a bedroom for four years with a bucket as a toilet. Hose later created a false identity for her, “Nikki Allen,” and introduced her as his girlfriend, allowing limited freedom with strict curfews. After ten years, Tanya revealed her captivity to a grocery store owner, who called the police. Hose was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison and was released in 2022, subsequently registering as a sex offender.

12. Shōichi Yokoi was a Japanese soldier who served as a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War and was one of the last three Japanese holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungles of Guam on January 24, 1972, almost 28 years after U.S. forces had regained control of the island in 1944.

13. Ariel Castro kidnapped three young women between 2002 and 2004—Michelle Knight (21), Amanda Berry (16), and Gina DeJesus (14). He brutally beat, starved, and raped them, with Berry eventually bearing a child. Trapped in Castro’s Cleveland home, they dreamed of freedom. In 2013, while Castro was away, Berry managed to contact neighbors, who helped her escape. She called the police, leading to the rescue of Knight and DeJesus. Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years but took his own life a month into his sentence.

14. At age 7, Steven Stayner was kidnapped by Kenneth Parnell, a pedophile who abused him for seven years and convinced him his family couldn't afford to keep him. When Stayner was 14, Parnell kidnapped a new child named Timothy. Afraid for him, Stayner ran away with Timothy and was finally reunited with his family, although readjusting to normal life was reportedly very difficult. In 1989, after starting a family of his own, Stayner tragically died in a motorcycle accident.

15. Ryker Webb survived two days in the Montana wilderness in near-freezing temperatures in an area that, according to locals, is heavily populated with bears and mountain lions.