Discovery of 3 women recalls past abduction cases

The discovery of three women in a Cleveland home who all had gone missing separately about a decade ago brings to mind cases of abductions elsewhere. A list of some prominent cases:

JAYCEE DUGARD

Dugard was abducted in June 1991 on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California. Then 11, she was held for 18 years by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. She was raped repeatedly by Garrido and gave birth to two daughters. Dugard was freed in 2009 after she and her two children appeared in public with him and a police interrogation revealed her identity. Convicted of kidnapping and rape, Garrido was sentenced to 431 years in prison. His wife received a sentence of 36 years to life.

ELISABETH FRITZL

Fritzl disappeared from her town of Amstetten, Austria, in 1984 at age 18. In 2008, she re-emerged 24 years later from the dungeon-like basement chamber where her father, Josef, had kept her captive. He raped her thousands of times. She bore him seven children, one of which died in captivity after Josef Fritzl refused to allow medical treatment. Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a prison psychiatric ward in March 2009. Elisabeth Fritzl and her children were given new identities.

SHAWN HORNBECK

In October 2002, Hornbeck — then 11 — was kidnapped while riding his bike to a friend's house in Washington County, Missouri. In January 2007, authorities found Hornbeck and another kidnapped boy, Ben Ownby, in the suburban St. Louis apartment of Michael Devlin. Ownby, 13, had been abducted four days earlier. Devlin was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and abusing the boys.

NATASCHA KAMPUSCH

Kampusch was kidnapped in 1998 off the street in Vienna at age 10. She managed to escape in 2006 but only after spending eight years as a captive, mostly in a tiny basement enclosure. She was abused by her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, who committed suicide soon after Kampusch freed herself.

ELIZABETH SMART

At age 14, Smart was snatched from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in June 2002 by Brian David Mitchell, who did odd jobs for the family. Tormented over nine months by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, Smart was freed after she was recognized in March 2003 while in public with both of them. He is serving a life sentence and Barzee is serving 16 years in prison.

JULIE LEJEUNE, MELISSA RUSSO, AN MARCHAL, EEFJE LAMRECKS, SABINE DARDENNE, LAETITIA DELHEZ

Aged between 8 and 19 when snatched between mid-1995 and August 1996, the six victims were abducted, tortured and abused by Belgian Marc Dutroux. Only Dardenne, 12, and Delhez, 14, escaped alive after being found near the southern Belgian town of Charleroi a few days after Dutroux's arrest in August 1996. He is serving a life sentence. His wife, Michelle Martin, is now in a convent after serving 16 years of a 30-year prison term.

STEVEN STAYNER

The 7-year-old boy was kidnapped in 1972 while walking home from school in Merced, California. After Stayner escaped captivity in 1980, Kenneth Eugene Parnell was convicted of kidnapping him and a second boy, 5-year-old Timmy White, and sentenced to seven years in prison. Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1989 at age 24.

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Associated Press writer Raf Casert contributed from Brussels.

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Pope recalls 'joy,' difficulties in final audience

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI basked in an emotional send-off Wednesday from an estimated 150,000 people at his final general audience in St. Peter's Square, recalling moments of "joy and light" during his papacy and also times of difficulty when "it seemed like the Lord was sleeping."

The crowd, many toting banners saying "Grazie!" ("Thank you!"), jammed the piazza to bid Benedict farewell and hear his final speech as pontiff. In this appointment, which he has kept each week for eight years to teach the world about the Catholic faith, Benedict thanked his flock for respecting his retirement, which takes effect Thursday.

Benedict clearly enjoyed the occasion, taking a long victory lap around the square in an open-sided car and stopping to kiss and bless half a dozen children handed to him by his secretary. Seventy cardinals, some tearful, sat in solemn attendance — then gave him a standing ovation at the end of his speech.

Benedict made a quick exit, foregoing the typical meet-and-greet session that follows the audience as if to not prolong the goodbye.

Given the historic moment, Benedict also changed course and didn't produce his typical professorial Wednesday catechism lesson. Rather, he made his final public appearance in St. Peter's a personal one, explaining once again why he was becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign and urging the faithful to pray for his successor.

"To love the church means also to have the courage to take difficult, painful decisions, always keeping the good of the church in mind, not oneself," Benedict said to thundering applause.

He noted that a pope has no privacy: "He belongs always and forever to everyone, to the whole church." But he promised that in retirement he would not be returning to private life — instead taking on a new experience of service to the church through prayer.

He recalled that when he was elected pope on April 19, 2005, he questioned if God truly wanted it.

"'It's a great burden that you've placed on my shoulders,'" he recalled telling God.

During his eight years as pope, Benedict said he had had "moments of joy and light, but also moments that haven't been easy ... moments of turbulent seas and rough winds, as has occurred in the history of the church when it seemed like the Lord was sleeping."

But he said he never felt alone, that God always guided him, and he thanked his cardinals and colleagues for their support and for "understanding and respecting this important decision."

The pope's eight-year tenure has been beset by the clerical sex abuse scandal, discord over everything from priestly celibacy to women's ordination, and most recently the betrayal by his own butler who stole his private papers and leaked them to a journalist.

Under a bright sun and blue skies, the square was overflowing with pilgrims and curiosity-seekers. Those who couldn't get in picked spots along the main boulevard leading to the square to watch the event on giant TV screens. About 50,000 tickets were requested for Benedict's final master class. In the end, the Vatican estimated that 150,000 people flocked to the farewell.

"It's difficult — the emotion is so big," said Jan Marie, a 53-year-old Roman in his first years as a seminarian. "We came to support the pope's decision."

With chants of "Benedetto!" erupting often, the mood was far more buoyant than during the pope's final Sunday blessing. It recalled the jubilant turnouts that often accompanied him at World Youth Days and events involving his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Benedict has said he decided to retire after realizing that, at 85, he simply didn't have the "strength of mind or body" to carry on.

"I have taken this step with the full understanding of the seriousness and also novelty of the decision, but with a profound serenity in my soul," Benedict told the crowd.

Benedict will meet Thursday morning with cardinals for a final time, then fly by helicopter to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.

There, at 8 p.m., the doors of the palazzo will close and the Swiss Guards in attendance will go off duty, their service protecting the head of the Catholic Church over — for now.

Many of the cardinals who will choose Benedict's successor were in St. Peter's Square for his final audience. Those included retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, the object of a grass-roots campaign in the U.S. to persuade him to recuse himself for having covered up for sexually abusive priests. Mahony has said he will be among the 115 cardinals voting on who the next pope should be.

"God bless you," Mahony said when asked by television crews about the campaign.

Also in attendance Wednesday were cardinals over 80, who can't participate in the conclave but will participate in meetings next week to discuss the problems facing the church and the qualities needed in a new pope.

"I am joining the entire church in praying that the cardinal electors will have the help of the Holy Spirit," Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, said.

Herranz has been authorized by the pope to brief voting-age cardinals on his investigation into the leaks of papal documents that exposed corruption in the Vatican administration.

Vatican officials say cardinals will begin meeting Monday to decide when to set the date for the conclave.

But the rank-and-file faithful in the crowd weren't so concerned with the future; they wanted to savor the final moments with the pope they have known for years.

"I came to thank him for the testimony that he has given the church," said Maria Cristina Chiarini, a 52-year-old homemaker who traveled by train from Lugo in central Italy with about 60 members of her parish. "There's nostalgia, human nostalgia, but also comfort, because as a Christian we have hope. The Lord won't leave us without a guide."

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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