Midsi Sanchez steps in to support family of missing teen

Per this article: 19-year-old Midsi Sanchez has connected with the family of Sierra Mae Lamar, a fifteen-year-old girl who’s been missing for a week.

Midsi isn’t a household name like Elizabeth Smart, but she too is a kidnap survivor. I remember when she was abducted. I was fourteen at the time and just getting into the swing of my missing persons obsession. Midsi was eight. She was snatched by Curtis Dean Anderson, the serial killer who was later convicted of the murder of Xiana Fairchild and is now presumed to be the killer of Amber Swartz-Garcia too. Anderson held Midsi chained to the gearshift of his car for three days before she was able to escape. He died in prison in 2007.

Now, 12 years later, Sanchez has found her calling and become a symbol of hope for families of missing children — four families so far. At the same time, her extraordinary mission has unearthed painful memories. Yet, with each family she’s helped, she’s gained confidence and is finding new meaning and purpose in life. “Now I feel like I’m in a good place and in the right mind to help the family,” Sanchez said in an interview Thursday. “I’m not so scared. I’m not so hesitant. I’m ready to go out and do whatever it is I can do for Sierra.” […] Sierra’s older sister, Danielle LaMar, 21, said Sanchez’s presence this week has been “extremely inspirational and has given us more hope.”

Midsi became involved as a missing child activist when she was sixteen, eight years after the kidnapping. She said after the kidnapping, she “pretended it never happened” and initially did well, but when she became a teenager she did have some emotional problems and substance abuse issues. She was in a serious car crash in 2009 as well. But now she’s doing well, working, with a toddler daughter.

At the bottom, the article has a list of some northern California cases of children who were abducted and survived.