Ellee Seymour

An 11-year-old schoolgirl who was abducted near her home in California 18 years ago was today being reunited with her shocked family after walking into a police station.

Jaycee Lee Dugard was on her way to school when she was pulled into a stranger’s car just a block away from her South Lake Tahoe home. Her stepfather said he heard her scream and saw a man and a woman drive the terrified girl away in a grey car.

Exhaustive searches drew a blank until the 28-year-old woman revealed her true identity in tiny Antioch, a suburb of San Francisco.

Carl Probyn, Jaycee’s stepfather, said he had given up hope of seeing her again.

"Then you pray that you get her body back so there is an ending. To have this happen where we get her back alive, and where she remembers things from the past, and to have people in custody is a triple win. It’s like winning the Lotto."

Police have taken two people into custody in connection with the abduction of the woman, who is now 28.

If only all these tragic stories could have the same happy ending…

In memory of those who are still missing.

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Some names of missing people remain etched in the memory. One of those is April Fabb, a  13-year-old Norfolk schoolgirl who vanished 40 years ago today.

On April 8, 1969, April had been cycling to her sister’s home in Roughton, near Cromer to give her brother-in-law a birthday present. It was only two miles from her home in Metton, but she never made it along the country lane. In the space of six minutes, between 2.06pm, when she was seen by a tractor driver, and 2.12pm, when her blue and white bike was found lying on its side in a field, she vanished. Nothing has been heard of her since.

Detectives have kept the baffling case open in the hope of receiving fresh information which will provide the desperately needed answers for April’s grieving family.

Her  mother Olive, who is 89, wonders every day what happened to her shy and sensitive daughter who loved picking primroses in a nearby wood.

There are strong similarities between this case and the unsolved disappearance of 13-year-old Genette Tate, a newspaper delivery girl on August 19, 1978.

In memory of those who are still missing.

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