It sounds like a scene from a road crime novel: someone is on the run and pauses briefly at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere; at some point the waitress looks at the unknown guests and then at the television in the corner. To the guests, to the TV, and suddenly it’s clear: These are the people they’re looking for! Something similar happened recently in the US state of North Carolina: A woman noticed two other customers, one of them a young girl, in a mail-order store in Asheville and thought: I know her – where have I seen her before?
She remembered: In the Netflix documentary series “Unsolved Mysteries”, which deals with unsolved crimes. The woman first called a store employee and then the police – and indeed: The teenager was 15-year-old Kayla Unbehaun, who had been kidnapped by her mother in Illinois about 1,000 kilometers away six years ago.
Relatives expose by true crime and social networks
Officers arrested the mother, Heather Unbehaun; the daughter was taken to her father Ryan Iskerka. Investigators said she’s fine. There is currently no more information, including whether the child even knew that it had been kidnapped and how it now assesses the return to its father. Of course he doesn’t want to talk at first, that National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent a statement on his behalf: “I’m over the moon that Kayla is safe at home. I would like to ask for privacy during this time as we reconnect and reboot.” According to the authorities, the case is not that rare: around 30,000 kidnappings are reported each year, and family members are the perpetrators in 1,500 of them. Police say mother will be transferred from Asheville to Illinois; officials will have to clarify the question also asked in the Netflix documentary: What happened in those six years?
The kidnapping itself has been largely clarified: the father has had sole custody since the beginning of 2017, but the mother was entitled to visits and excursions with the daughter. On July 5th, at least that’s what she told neighbors and friends, she went on a camping trip with her daughter in the state of Wisconsin; she was last seen loading her car, and the day before her daughter at an Independence Day parade. However: They never came back from this trip. The mother had turned off her cell phone and deleted all social media profiles. When Unbehaun did not show up for the agreed handover on July 7, Iskerka called the police. It turned out that Unbehaun had skipped a court date a few weeks earlier and had not responded to attempts to contact her attorney in the days leading up to the crime.
So far it is unclear how Unbehaun managed to remain undetected for six years. One possible reason could be the sheer number of reports of kidnappings. Sixty percent of all “Amber Alerts,” emergency reports sent to American cell phones by the police, have to do with kidnappings. Most of these warnings are regional, just as the authorities’ investigations in this case were initially limited to Kane County, Illinois – where Kayla Unbehaun and her father lived. Only after a few days did the federal agency FBI become involved. It can often be difficult for the public to find out anything at all about a particular kidnapping, especially in a far-flung state.
Which is why relatives often ask for help on social networks or take part in true crime formats. Kayla’s father, Ryan Iskerka, wrote in his statement: “I want to thank the members of the ‘Bring Kayla Home’ Facebook forum for keeping the story alive and providing constant attention.” The Unsolved Mysteries episode about the case has been on Netflix since November last year, something like that is not sent in streaming times. Asheville Police say the woman who recognized the mother and daughter saw the episode recently and may have immediately remembered it.
Heather Unbehaun is currently out on bail, says Samantha Booth of the Asheville Police Department. She has to appear in court in Illinois on July 11th, and then at the latest it should be clarified what many people are still asking: What has happened in the past six years?