Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Just Jumped

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

Eight year old Midsi is on her way home from school, when a strange man abducts her on the street and holds her captive for days. Despite her attacker’s threats, Midsi makes a daring escape and saves herself from certain death. Sponsors: AMCN: Visit airmedcarenetwork.com and use offer CODE: ISURVIVED when you join. 

This episode is Midzi. When I think about Midzi, I think about resilience. She had such a hard childhood and adolescence, but she got to a place of asking herself, okay, what am I going to do about it? And as you'll hear, that's how she approaches so many obstacles in her life. Okay, what am I going to do about this?

This is episode 11, I Just Jumped. This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault of a child. Listener discretion advised. That's something that I share with my child and with other kids, that adults don't need help from children. I don't care if it's an old lady crossing the street. You go get an adult and you have them help that person,

but it is not a child's responsibility to help an adult in need. This is I Survived, the podcast where we talk to women who have lived through the worst things imaginable and all the tragic, messy, and wonderful things that can happen after survival. I'm Kaitlin VanMol. Mitzi Sanchez grew up in Vallejo, California, outside San Francisco in the 90s. I'm the first generation of my family that was born and raised here in the United States. My family's from Mexico, Jalisco, Mexico. And gosh, I'm like in the middle of about six kids that my mom has.

We were like a soccer family. We all loved playing sports. That was like the passion that was passed down from the eldest all the way down to the youngest. My family was always really super cool. We were like the party family. And everyone liked to come to our house for all of the functions and birthdays and New Year's celebrations and things like that. And I was pretty much raised to have a lot of confidence. Like my parents always kind of just pumped me up and just made me a confident kid. I love to sing. I love to dance. I was a really super a confident kid. I loved to sing.

I loved to dance. I was a really super spunky kid. My older brother and I, we attended the same elementary school. We attended Highland Elementary School. I never liked school. I remember faking stomach aches in, like, kindergarten. I loved being with my friends at school.

I went to school for my friends. On August 12, 2000, Mitzi was walking home from school alone. Normally, she would be walking with her brothers. It's about a seven-block walk from school to my home, and I was almost there. And I noticed that man sitting in his car and as soon as I stepped onto the curb I noticed him staring at me through his rearview mirror and for me that was odd because it was there were never cars parked on that street there were no homes so it just didn't make sense to for those cars to be there and I'm kid you not my gut, that inside voice, which is the Holy Spirit told me to cross the street.

And like, and like we all do, I ignored it. And I just went on with my normal routine. He got out of his car and he asked me for help. He wanted me to help him. He said he broke his hip in a bike accident. And, um, and I felt sorry for him. My parents always taught me to help him. He said he broke his hip in a bike accident. And I felt sorry for him. My parents always taught me to be loving and kind and generous and helpful. But my parents never told me that adults don't need help from children. And I don't think they knew that. The man asked her to get something from his car. So I said, okay, you know, I'm going to help this guy and then get on.

I opened up the car door, and he leaned over me from behind and put his hands around my mouth. He threw me into the car, and, you know, he said, if you try to get out or run, I'm going to shoot you. I have a gun in my trunk. I was freaked out. I was scared. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know if it was real. I didn't know. I just, you know, I was in shock. We took off down the street and as we took off towards the freeway entrance, I was looking back at my house, just wanting to, you know, be there so bad, not with this weirdo. You know, I'm just like this scared little girl,

not knowing or understanding why this old man has me in his car, what he wants to do with me. I did, you know, everything he said. I didn't want to make him mad, or I didn't want, you know, everything he said. I didn't want to make him mad or I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want him to hurt me. So I just, I just went along. Anyone who has ever been in a life or death situation can testify that a lot can happen in an instant. You've listened to their stories here. Seconds count. Air Med Care Network is

America's largest emergency air ambulance membership network. Their providers operate Count. We'll be right back. It's surprisingly affordable and it covers your entire household. Add AirMed Care Network to your plans. They can help protect your family and your finances. Visit airmedcarenetwork.com and use offer code ISURVIVED when you join. That's ISURVIVED with no spaces. He drove her to a quiet rest area miles from her home. He asked me to change into some clothes, and the clothes that he had were another young girl's clothes, but they weren't new. They were used. He grabbed a chain from his trunk, and he wrapped it around my ankle, and he went and got a lock, and he locked my ankle

up, and, you know, he tied it up to the gear shift. You know, I said, well, maybe if he lets me go to the bathroom, I can get away now, or, you know, I can, you know, just leave, or maybe somebody will see me or help me. So I asked him, I asked him if I could go to the restroom, and he said, no, you can't. You can't get out of the car. So he hands me a cup. The man forced Mitzi to drink alcohol and showed her pornographic photos.

He had a picture of a girl's breasts. It was an older woman. And then he pulled out his camera. He took my shorts off and he proceeded to take pictures of me. I was just hurt. I just didn't understand why he was doing it. I felt nasty.

I didn't want to do it. I just had to do what he said. I didn't know what he was going to do to me if I didn't. So I just, you know, I had to do what he said. I didn't know what he was going to do to me, you know, if I didn't. So I just, I just went along. I was scared, and when he told me he had a gun, I believed him. So I just, you know, I don't know this guy. I don't know, you know, how crazy he is or what he can do or what he's capable of. Five hours had passed.

It was starting to get dark, and Mitzi hadn't eaten since her lunch at school. I was starving, and he didn't feed me. He didn't give me water or anything to drink. As it got darker, I remember getting tired, and I wanted to rest, but I couldn't sleep. And I looked over at him, and he was knocked out, snoring. I kept fighting to stay awake.

I didn't want to go to sleep. I didn't trust him. I didn't know if he was going to wake up or what he was going to do to me. I just, I didn't get any sleep the first night. I remember seeing cops drive by us. I saw about two cop cars just drive right by us, going through the rest area, searching, I guess. You know, I just wanted one of them to help me so bad, but nobody stopped. None of them stopped. They spent the night in the car.

The next morning, the sun comes up, and I'm so exhausted. I didn't get any sleep, and we left the rest area, and he, you know, kicked me down to the floor again, covered me up with blankets, and we stopped at a house. I was trying to peek, but he said, you know, not to move. Mitzi had been reported missing at 5 40 p.m. the previous evening. The FBI was called in, and sheriff's deputies with dogs began searching the 15-block area around her school. The school called every student's parents to see if they knew where Mitzi was. Mitzi's parents went on the local news, pleading for their daughter's return.

They don't talk about it. They open up sometimes. My parents had like a really, it's just a bad memory for them. I do remember them telling me they were upset because they were being questioned and treated as if they were the ones that were responsible for me being missing. Um, but as time went on, you know, and they were always, um, you know, working with the police and just being, doing what they were supposed to be doing through the case. The police department, the police department really was like a huge help. They did a lot. The community did a lot.

Officers that are, you know, still my friends today have shared stories with me of them, like swimming in water and searching in like ditches and on the sides of freeways. And none, they, some didn't sleep for those three days, but there was just, there, there was so much support and the entire city of Vallejo was literally searching for me. Volunteers were handing out flyers all over the city. The house Midzi mentioned earlier, the one that she wasn't allowed to peek at, that was her house. He had actually walked into our home asking for flyers so he could help pass them out around the city. He drove off with no indication that the little girl they were looking for was in the car with him.

It took a while for us to get to our next destination. I remember we drove into this city, and we're at a stoplight, and I see people. I see them in their cars driving by, and I'm looking at them, hoping that they'll notice me. But nobody noticed. He parked the car at his work and went inside to watch the news coverage of her kidnapping. He put blankets over the windows so no one could see in, and the whole time he had me chained to the gear shift. He would go in and watch the news.

He'd go and watch my family pleading for whoever had their daughter to bring her back. When he got out of the car, you know, I did try to take the lock, you know, and, you know, wiggle it around. I tried to slide it off my foot. It wasn't going anywhere. It was on there pretty good. Soon it got dark as her second day in captivity came to an end.

The second night, we stayed in the parking lot of the industrial area. Nobody was around. And I remember him getting out of the car, and he asked me to move over into the driver's seat, and he pulled his pants down. And I remember him taking my clothes off,

and then he proceeded to rape me. Like I have the image in my head, you know, like the stars in the sky and, you know, that was like the, that was all I was trying to focus on was the stars. I wasn't, I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to talk to him. Like I didn't want to look around the car. There was so much junk in the car. It was dirty.

So I just tried to focus on the, you know, the only thing that was looking beautiful to me at that time. I wasn't angry. I was just sad. I was just so sad. It just has to be something so wrong with this person for him to be able to do something like that to a child. It didn't work out the way he wanted to,

so he kind of got pissed off, and, you know, he just stopped. I got back into the passenger seat, and I just... I think I just remember just sitting there looking up at the sky. You know, just like I'm going to be with him another night. I didn't know if I was going to go home or, you know, be with him forever. I didn't know if he was going to kill me. I just, I didn't know. And I started praying. And I was just praying for God to, you know, to forgive me for being a bad little girl

and always, you know, bugging my sister and, you know, not listening to my mom and dad. And, you know, I just, you know, wanted him to let my family know that I loved him. The next morning, her captor went inside again to check the news. He came back to the car and he didn't get in this time. He just, he opened the passenger door, leaned over me and dropped something. And so as soon as he left, I peeked to see if he was close by, and I looked over, and I pulled out a big old ring of keys, and I just picked out the smallest one that looked like it would fit into the lock, and I tried it, and it fit.

And I opened the lock, took the chain off of my leg, I rolled the window down, and hopped out of the window. And then I see him and he's yelling for me to come back and he's like, come back, hey, you know, you come back here. I look back at him and I'm like, no, I'm not coming back. I walk towards the street, I'm looking at all the cars go by, I'm trying to wave them down, trying to get someone's attention. And, you know, nobody was stopping.

And then I see this big old truck coming by. And I, like, ran in front of his truck on the middle of the street. So he had to stop for me. And at that time, I see the guy coming out yelling at me, come back here. Hey, you come back here. And I'm like, no, I'm not coming back. I'm free. I'm, you know, I'm not, I wasn't in his hands anymore.

The truck driver had his window open, so I just jumped, I jumped through his window, jumped over his lap and got into his passenger seat. And that's when he got on his CB radio and took the license plate number down. Police arrived quickly to the scene, but her kidnapper fled as soon as he saw that she got away. And they took really good care of me.

The Santa Clara Police Department fed me. I think I ate, like, 20-piece chicken nuggets, and they took me to the police station. They bought me new clothes. I had fresh, clean clothes. From there, Mitzi was taken to the hospital to be examined. I had to go through the sexual assault examination, and that's something that's really important to talk about also because a lot of sexual assault cases and rape cases don't make

it to court they almost never do and that's because there's no witnesses and most women and kids don't know that they have to go to a hospital and see a sexual assault nurse examiner within like a certain period of time I'd say right when it happens to up to ten days because semen doesn't stay around too long, but saliva does. And I had to endure that examination. They swabbed my entire body. They took my clothes. I still wasn't reunited with my parents yet. So I'm like still kind of stiff-necked around all these strangers. Although they were treating me good, I was still in shock from the last three days of being chained up in this man's car.

Then they drove me back down to Vallejo. So I was reunited with my parents at Sutter Medical Center in Vallejo, my mom, my aunt, my dad. And it was just like the beginning of a whole day at the police department. The next few days, even they questioned me, they did a sketch of him. They drove me, they made me drive them, well, tell them where to drive me around to all of the different locations that he took me to. So like the rest stop, the stores that were local to Vallejo, and just to kind of pretty much backtrack. And it was pretty traumatizing. I don't recommend that to any law enforcement,

but hey, if you got to do it, you got to do it. Curtis Dean Anderson was arrested around 7 o'clock p.m. the same day. Mitzi wasn't the first little girl he had kidnapped. When I was with him, actually, he told me that he had done this to many girls and he'd killed them all and that none of them have ever, ever got away so that I better not try it. But when I came home and I was kind of like putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, I was told that he did in fact kidnap and murder Zianna Fairchild, who was like the most beautiful seven-year-old Hawaiian baby girl from Vallejo. Sianna Fairchild was abducted December 9, 1999, just eight months before Mitzi. The girls lived two miles apart.

Anderson later told investigators he held Sianna for several weeks before killing her. And then years later, I think I was probably like 15 when the FBI was knocking on my door and kind of bracing me for what the media was about to release publicly. And it was that. And he had, in fact, kidnapped and murdered Amber Schwartz Garcia. On June 3rd, 1988, Amber Schwartz Garcia was taken from her front yard in Pinole, California, about 10 miles from Vallejo, where Mitzi lived. Anderson confessed to her murder in November of 2007, but no physical evidence has been found to corroborate his confession.

According to the FBI, Anderson confessed to eight murders in total. My family was directed to not speak to me about it at all, which was, it was good and bad. They didn't want them digging or just asking questions or bringing it up. They wanted to make it like a normal life again, I guess. But it's impossible. You can't just go back to a normal life. Like, you're not the same 8-year-old or the same family. My siblings went through a bunch of stuff too, and they weren't the same. My family experienced a lot of hate crimes and bullying and just a bunch of disgusting things coming from people that lived around us that thought it was funny.

Or, you know, they'd say things like, we've got her and drive by. Midzie's house wasn't the most stable, even before her kidnapping. Honestly, this is so bad. I only remember us fighting. Like, it was a rare moment that my sister tolerated me. My brother that went to school with me that was about the same age, we always bumped heads. We came from a home of alcoholics. And at the end of all of those fun parties I was telling you about, like everything in the house would be broken.

And just a little bit of dysfunction, like, you know, most families do have. And, like, there wasn't a lot of, like, I love you for mom or she wasn't, like, super affectionate. It was really kind of the opposite with my dad. I was his first and only daughter. And my brother was his first and only son. The other siblings were from other marriages that my mom had. We all got the same mom. But it was kind of a stressful, stressful household. Yes, we had fun. But like I said, soccer was our outlet. That was our way to get out of the house and to just be kids. After Mitzi's abduction, the whole family went to therapy.

There was therapy for everyone that was willing to take it, but none of us really stuck through and did all of the therapy sessions that we should have. My dad promised God that he'd stop drinking if he got me back. And my mom kept drinking.

So they, like, saw each other through different eyes. And then they both started drinking again. And the fighting was still happening because of, you know, the alcoholism. And kids became angry. And therapy wasn't—we weren't willing to go anymore. But therapy for me personally as a kid helped me get through court. It was like the best way to prepare for trial because I knew that I was going to be in front of a judge and a jury and an audience

and we set up like teddy bears and we just, we kind of role played. So I knew what to expect. Again, she, you know, was open and honest. And when I had to face the reality of court, it was like a breeze because I knew what was coming. In April 2001, Anderson faced kidnapping and 10 sexual molestation charges that could carry a sentence of up to 250 years. A formal plea deal was never made, but in preliminary discussions, an offer of 75 years to life was discussed in an effort to spare Mitzi from testifying. He rejected this offer. Anderson's attorney said he wanted, quote, something without a life sentence on the end of it, something with a certain number of years. Mitzi took the stand wearing a blue dress and carrying a doll. I stood up boldly and was the best witness, regardless of age, in that courtroom.

Alan Carter, he was the most amazing judge. He's retired now, but he gave that man 251 years on my case alone and not on any of the other girls that he murdered because there were no witnesses or no evidence, just his word saying he did that. But he bragged about it. Mitzi was present for the sentencing in July of 2001. It was a packed courtroom.

This was a nationwide story. Everybody wanted to be there, and everybody just got out of hand. They were clapping and yelling and screaming and the judge had to shut everybody up because he needed some order in his court. But it just, it was, it was overwhelming, you know. I'll never forget that moment because like I didn't have it I don't I don't think I really realized or was able to grasp what was happening but when he was given his sentence of 251 years I thought that was great but just to feel the emotion of the entire courtroom and like I'm trying to even take myself back to that moment

um it's just it's brings back so many emotions because like I did that and any kid can do that you know they don't have to be afraid of some man because they're bigger and stronger. But to be someone who was able to outsmart that person and show him that somebody could get away, he just was so bold and confident in himself. He had no clue what was coming. With the trial over, Mitzi wanted to go back to just being an 8-year-old. But that wasn't so easy.

I went back to school, like, almost immediately. And that was tough because kids surrounded me, and they were all watching me at home on the news. And they'd say things like, what happened to you? Are you scared? What'd he do? And, like, 30 kids would surround me at once on the playground and I just was like why do you want to know you don't want to know and I don't want to tell you um I think that they the kids at school were told to pretty much leave me alone um and so that died down but between third grade and fifth grade there were always little comments and things that kids would say. I don't recall them. But as I got into middle school, I had children coming up to me and saying things like, oh, you think you're stuck up because you're on TV or go F the guy that kidnapped you.

I'm going to have my uncle come and kidnap you. Like these kids would just say crazy things to me. And I mean, it hurt, like it hurt me to the core because they had no idea that while I was kidnapped, this old white man was making me do things to him that should only be between a And it made me angry. And I got tired of it. So it went from kids bullying me and mocking me to at the tone of anyone saying, are you Mitzi Sanchez? I would just beat them up. Because if I could stop them from even hurting me or I didn't even want them to think about asking me those questions. So pretty soon I just became a fighter. And the friends that I surrounded myself with were fighters too. And we were drinkers and we were

smokers and we were popping pills and we were doing everything that we could get our hands on. But we talked very little about the trauma that we all experienced. Now that we're older, we know, like she grew up with a crackhead mom. She was, you know, probably abused too. I was abducted and grew up around drunks. And my other friend grew up in foster care and her mom was on dope, but we never talked about that. And we didn't know how to, we didn't know how to release that. So we did it through our partying and through our fighting. And ultimately ended us up in juvenile hall.

I personally liked it because I was by myself and I didn't have to be around other kids or deal with other people's junk. I would sit in my room by myself and I'd write, and writing was the outlet for me. On December 9, 2007, just eight years into a sentence, Curtis Dean Anderson died of natural causes. When I found out he died, I was disappointed while everybody else was cheering and excited about it. Let's see. Okay, so I think I was about 14, and I was on probation at the time,

and my probation officer called me, and she was, like, cheering, and she was like cheering and she was like he's dead and I was just like so because I didn't want him to die I felt like he had died too soon he had only served eight years and died in Corcoran State Prison from liver failure but he had been kidnapping and murdering girls since the 70s so to me I felt like he got off way way too soon way too early and I think I wanted him to suffer I ran the streets and ran into so many people that, maybe did dope with him or people that were locked up with him or people that even worked in the prisons that he was living in. And they would tell me the stories of things that would happen while he was in there. And it kind of gave me a little bit of, you know, just, I don't even know what's the word.

But it made me feel content. Like, okay, good. That's what he deserves. He deserves to be in prison and get messed with. He did not live a fun life while he was in prison. A lot of these prisoners have children, too, and it's just not tolerated, you know, so he got off way too soon. Eight years wasn't enough, but it's God's plan, not mine. Mitzi continued drinking and getting into trouble. She says she avoided dealing with her trauma.

Then she saw a missing persons flyer for 8-year-old Sandra Cantu in Tracy, California. Actually, I knew I wanted to do something the moment I saw her flyer. I went to Tracy to go to a car show with my friends. When we got to Tracy, the whole city was, like, going crazy. There was cops everywhere. The community was running all whole city was, like, going crazy. There was cops everywhere. The community was running all. It was, like, insane.

And we stopped at a Jack in the Box, and I saw her flyer on the wall. I ripped the flyer off the wall, and I called my aunt, and I just was, like, in tears, and I could not stop crying. I didn't know why. I just was like, I want to do something. And she said, you know, come home and we're going to figure out what we can do. And so I took that flyer to Vallejo and I went to Minutemen Press. They donated 3,000 copies of her flyers and we started posting them around town. And the Vallejo Times-Herald wanted to come and do a story with me. After Times-Herald came,

Channel 2 came and Channel 4 and every single Bay Area news station was there wanting to interview me. But it was something that I felt like I was called to do. For those first 10 days that that girl was missing was the first time that I told my story 100 times because I knew that every time I shared my story, it was for a purpose, and it was to get that little girl's face on the Bay Area news, and it ended up becoming another nationwide story, and it showed and aired more and more every time that

I got in front of a camera and shared my story. And it was different from when the kids were wanting to know what happened to me because they were being nosy. Now I had a purpose. Now I had a reason to talk about my abduction. I was 16 years old, and that was the first time I ever got sober so that I could help this family. After a 10-day search, police found Sandra's body in a suitcase in an irrigation pond. She had been abducted and murdered by Melissa Huckabee, the mother of one of Sandra's friends. Huckabee says she doesn't know why she murdered Sandra. Unfortunately, she was found dead in a suitcase which broke my heart and opened up a whole other can of worms for me but that little girl showed me who I was placed on this earth to be

and I will never forget her or her family. But I had not really gone to therapy, really, so I didn't really deal with the trauma. It broke my heart so bad, because I knew we were going to find her alive. And when we didn't, it was like... I felt like I was giving the family false hope. Although they didn't look at it in that way, they still embraced me,

and they said that I gave them a second wind. They were able to lift their heads up and continue searching for their daughter, and I didn't want to show my face around them because I felt like why did my family get me back, and they couldn't have their daughter back. So it was something that I just had to deal with. I started drinking again, blacking out, and ended up in a drinking and driving car accident, flying through the window, broken everything from the waist up, including my neck. In the early morning of May 1, 2009, Mitzi and three friends had been drinking.

They went out driving, veered off the road, and flipped the truck they were in. Everyone but the driver was thrown from the vehicle. Well, the car accident literally stopped me in my tracks because before that car accident, I was always fighting and just in a disastrous gang lifestyle. And, you know, the drugs and alcohol and everything. It just was a crazy life. And being disabled and bedridden and not able to bathe myself, feed myself, do my hair. Like I, I couldn't even shave my legs. It was, it was, it was rough. Like I had to go through a really

rough stage because I, I was disabled and it made me feel like less of a woman. It made me feel like I couldn't protect myself. So I didn't want to go out and be seen by someone and be attacked by them and get beat up. I was scared for my life. But also, I found out that I was pregnant. And during the car accident, I was pregnant with my daughter, who I have now. And between the car accident and becoming a mom, you know, honestly, if I didn't have my daughter, I probably would have still been doing the same stuff because I'm healed. I'm, you know, walking and I'm healthy again because I didn't did not care about myself.

But having her gave me like a heart of flesh. It gave me a whole new view on the world. She taught me how to love again. And I now cared about her more than I cared about myself. And so my life just started to change. And by choice. Because now I want to be better. You know, I still thrive to be, I'm not perfect, but at least I have a desire to be better. Mitzi also had great mentors come into her life that helped her make better decisions.

I had this angel lady named Auntie Mary. She was like everyone in Vallejo's auntie. She was the one that taught me how to pray. She taught me how to be in service. She brought me to AA. She, you know, was just herself. And she like never judged me. She loved me even though I was like this troubled teenager. And that made a huge impact on my life because she didn't give up on me. And I also had a mentor in the juvenile hall that I was at, Mrs. Williams. And, you know, she knew my story. And I was really favored because everybody knew my story.

But she would like pop my cell door open and she'd sit with me and just talk to me. And she just gave me that quality time and love that I needed that I wasn't getting. But I wasn't allowing anyone to give it to me either because I was so distant from people and anyone that tried to get near me, I didn't want it because I wasn't ready. But in like my most vulnerable moments, I was so blessed to have those mentors that and many people took their time out to speak to me. And I remember those moments because they gave me their one-on-one attention. And I think that's so important. Even if we just could stop for a minute to speak to someone,

we might not remember what we said to them, but they know what we made their heart feel like in that moment. And that really matters. Mitzi continues her advocacy work and has been involved with 10 more missing persons cases since Sandra Cantu. Two came home alive. I think I can, goodness, I want to say two were found deceased and the rest are just still missing. But aside from that, just being able to give people a person to talk to because people trust me with their stories. And I get women and men of all ages.

And I'm talking like young men my age to senior men and senior women that find out who I am. And they share their stories with me for the first time, and they've never, ever done it before. And it always reminds me about why I choose to advocate, because it gives people a voice. They can finally spit it out and not hold on to that anymore. Mitzi has come a long way, but she's still trying to regain the self-worth she remembers having as a spunky 8-year-old kid. I think I'm still getting it back.

It's been lost since I was a kid, but as I became a mom, and I was a teenage mom, then I started to feel different. And then my daughter and I grew together. She started kindergarten, and I started taking on other responsibilities. And all the while, I'm still advocating, not so much. But just as the years go on and I really, truly go into my purpose and into my motherhood and just like who I am as a daughter and just as a woman, like I'm grasping that and I think it's something that we you know we find with time and with patience and with experience comes wisdom and you know as we just we grow into our womanhood that that self-worth kind of just like grows with us, right?

Her daughter is now around the age she was when she was abducted. Mitzi doesn't shy away from talking to her about the dangers that are out there. She just turned nine, so right before she hit her eighth birthday, I had like a serious trauma meltdown because all of this stuff was resurfacing that I thought I was OK with. But, you know, it's been the best year that I've ever had with her. She advocates with me. She presents with me. She's a smart, amazing girl. She talks to kids at her school about safety. And I never imagined our life to be like that

because, you know, I wanted a boy. I was like, God's not going to give me a girl. I want a boy because I know what happens to girls. But he knew exactly what I needed. And I'm just grateful that I have a child that's strong-willed and that has an advocate's heart. I started talking to my daughter when she was three years old.

She started spitting out words. And she's always known my story. I don't want to sugarcoat anything, and I don't want to keep her in this bubble and her go out into the world and be shocked when the world hits her. Being able to share with her what's out in the world and saying, this happened to me, and this is why I this is what I don't want to happen to you and you have to be prepared and this is why I'm telling you it might not sound fun it might not be comfortable um it's actually a really uncomfortable

conversation but I'm telling you because I love you and I don't want to have to be put in a position that is going to take me away from you. And that's like the ultimate fear of mine, especially her being the age that I was when I was taken. Mitzi's work as an advocate led her to start her own nonprofit organization. Stay Alive was something that my dad always said to me, and it wasn't until my teenage years that I was like running amok. And every time I left his site, he would say, Mija, stay alive, make the right decisions, the right choices, and you'll be okay. Just come back home. And it stuck with me. after the car accident and I you know still here I decided to get stay alive tattooed and it just became an idea and

something fun for me and gosh I had been through so many near-death experiences not just from the kidnapping but the car accident everything in between that I caused in that lifestyle. But it just it stuck with me and it was so powerful. So I decided to just start making T-shirts and doing like fun stuff. And it ended up becoming like a movement, you know, after being taken all over the country with the Class Kids Foundation, doing child safety events. I knew that it was something that I always wanted to do for myself. I wanted to have my own organization.

I had already been advocating and helping families for the last 10 years, but June 11, 2018, I started the Mitzi Sanchez Foundation. And my organization works with families of missing children and we teach them how to utilize media. We teach them how to get together a group of volunteers to pass out flyers to just like how to begin this movement and let people know and make them aware that your child is missing and you are looking for them. We, you know, get food donations and things because these families aren't eating. They're not working. They need toilet paper. They got to pay their light bill you know so we just do what we can to teach them how to how to fundraise and how to utilize the media to get their story out so that they can get attention and um hopefully you know the help from law enforcement um because basically if you're a teenager and you're missing, good luck,

especially if you have a history of running away. It's not always the case, and even if they are runaways, they're still in danger. Stay Alive also wants to teach children safety measures to help prevent kidnappings before they happen. We want to use animatronic puppets to teach the kids about child safety, and we're also even mixing in some martial arts in there and just letting kids know about that gut instinct and how to know when they're in an uncomfortable situation. So our goal is to teach child safety and hopefully save kids.

Well, they'll, you know, have to save themselves sometimes. But if they have these tools, they can do what I did. And they could prevent from them being taken or being abused by a family member. Being involved in these cases takes a toll. Most of the kids don't come home. But even with the unlikelihood of a happy ending, Midzi always keeps hope. Gosh, this is hard to say. I've never said this publicly, but although I'm with the family and my heart is with them, and I wouldn't, gosh, I couldn't even say it to them because I don't know if their child's going to come back or not. But I know what the statistics are.

And just kind of preparing myself and knowing, you know, you expect them. You have to just expect the what is gosh, expect the worst. Hope for the best, hope for the best, expect the worst. Gosh, I'll never let, I mean, I don't know what cases we'll have in the future. I'm sure there's always going to be those kids or those families that just stick with me but never like the first time. You know, I knew that girl was going to come home. I knew I was going to meet her and then she didn't come home alive. So just knowing that there is a possibility that they won't make it back

kind of eases the pain for me. Never for the family because once we get that news of a loved one gone it's never easy especially considering you know their relationship but I know what to expect and we don't always get those great stories you know some of them suck and if they don't come back those most of the time those families join us in searches for others and it's a healing process for everyone to just be able to put themselves in service really helps us heal.

It gives us a sense of purpose again. If you want to learn more about Stay Alive, you Abuse Incest National Network, call 1-800-656-HOPE or 1-800-656-4673. You can also live chat with someone at RAINN.org. That's R-A-I-N-N dot O-R-G. I'm Kaitlin VanMol, host and senior producer. Our producer is McKamey Lynn, and our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our editor and sound designer is Steve Delamater. I Survived was originally produced by NHNZ. To hear more I Survived, please subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Lola Blanc. And I'm Megan Elizabeth. And we're the hosts of Trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief, and the abuse of power. Now on Podcast One. We're real-life cult survivors. And we're here to tell you anyone can join a cult.

If you've ever dived headfirst into a new self-help program. Or believed wholeheartedly in a spiritual practice. Or even just trusted someone with your life. Guess what? You're just as susceptible as everyone else. No one is safe, especially not Megan. I'm the most susceptible. We want to debunk the myth that people who join cults are uneducated or naive or broken

because anyone can be manipulated by a narcissist or feel good in a new group they've joined. And we should know we both have been. Join us every week as we explore the world of extreme belief talk to survivors and experts and share our own experiences with cults and the abuse of power don't be fooled you might be next get new episodes of trust me every wednesday on podcast one spotify apple podcasts and anywhere you get your podcasts. Dive into true crime on Pluto TV. Unravel the mysteries with forensic files and 48 hours. Investigate crimes with Dateline 24-7 and unsolved mysteries. With thousands of free crime

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