The survivor of one of the first widely covered cases of internet-related child abduction is speaking out about her experience in the hope of promoting child safety online.
Alicia Kozakiewicz sat down with Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren in a new episode of “No Interruption”, in which Kozakiewicz detailed her online correspondence with former computer programmer Scott Tyree, who kidnapped and abused her after she agreed to meet with him at the age of 13.
“I met somebody online who I thought was my friend, who could understand me,” Kozakiewicz recalled. “That’s what predators do. They look to find vulnerabilities in a child. And the next thing I knew, I was in a car, and this man was squeezing my hand so tightly that I thought he had broken it.”
Tyree, who had traveled to Pittsburgh to meet Kozakiewicz following weeks of online correspondence, drove her to his home in Virginia, where he held her captive for four days.
“I was raped and beaten and tortured in that basement,” Kozakiewicz told Lahren. “People often ask me ‘did you think that he was going to kill you? And it wasn’t a question of if, it was when.'”
Kozakiewicz was rescued by the FBI after a viewer of Tyree’s online broadcast recognized the young girl from a local missing persons poster.
“People often ask me ‘did you think that he was going to kill you?’ And it wasn’t a question of if, it was when.”
— Alicia Kozakiewicz, Fox Nation
“I’m just so lucky that everything fell into place, and it breaks my heart to know that not many children in stranger abductions or in situations like mine get that chance,” Kozakiewicz told Lahren.
Since the traumatic ordeal, Kozakiewicz has become a highly sought-after motivational speaker, missing persons advocate and internet safety expert.
The experience taught her that while “there is so much bad in this world, so much evil,” there is “so much more good,” she told Lahren.”
“But,” Kozakiewicz added, “good has to speak up louder.”
*story by Fox News