oh my word what a nightmare!! how horrifying. I'm reading up on claycord.com too and the guy's blog thank God she and her daughters can finally be free! my gosh. I pray for her family to begin the healing process as well. seriously, what a miracle.

I remember the Steven Stayner/his brother Cary? Stayner thing too. although I knew more about Cary Stayner, the (serial?) killer. I think he started murdering those women in Yosemite after his brother passed. Not sure though. I remember at the time all the news magazine shows having specials about it, saying how his brother Steven being captured/returning home might've been a factor in his darkness. Sounds horrible to say though.

chocolate covered raisins wrote:

No wonder she never ran

As a mother, there is no way in hell I would have my children around someone that I know is evil. I would have ran, only I would have took my children with me. She could have went to any hospital, clinic, police office, ect... and got help. She must have been pretty fucked up in the head to stay there.
You say you understand that mental issues affect everyone differently and that you can understand how/why Stayner's family was so effed up, but how are you so sure you'd have never stuck around had you been in Jaycee's situation? Regardless of her being locked in a shed or not, we don't know if she ever tried to run. Maybe she did. Even if she didn't, that doesn't mean she didn't desperately want her or her children to be away from such a beast as that man. I'm sure she has her reasons. She may have contemplated and planned out escape ideas, OR maybe she just didn't at all. Maybe she was thoroughly brainwashed from the get-go. Maybe they convinced her she was part of their family now and couldn't be with her "old" family anymore. Maybe she was frightened to death that if she escaped, she wouldn't find help in time before that beast either hurt her daughters or raped them or took em off someplace where she'd never be able to find them. I'd imagine it'd be harder to escape with 2 kids than to escape on your own. None of us know though. It's easy to say you would've done this or that. None of us can really say that unless we've actually been put in that kind of dire situation.

Tommy wrote:
The something 'off' about Elizabeth Smart is...well, look at her family. They're fucked up. I don't think it has much to do with her abduction.
Please stop. Why do people insist the Smart family is effed up and Ed Smart is a closeted gay nutjob? Just because they're Mormon and good people? God forbid someone be a different kind of person than you're used to or are familiar with, or raise their family differently. I can't believe all the crazy theories I've read about the Smart family. Just because the Smarts had good, giving, trusting souls and took pity on a man & let him into their home - doesn't mean they're crazy or stupid or that there is something sinister there.. It just means they had giving hearts in a time where such kindness is no longer safe to give out. I love how people read crap on the Internet or watch interviews and think they can deduce anything about a family that they only "know" through a lens. Such Internet theory.


I don't like how when this kind of thing happens people ask "why didn't they run?! why did it take so long?" As if the victims owe it to the public to explain their actions or why they did or didn't do anything. They need not explain it to us. I'm sure they're going through a hell of enough of an ordeal without the public wondering why they didn't escape their situation sooner. It's pressure and judgment they certainly don't need.