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The articles relates ten child abductions cases in different parts of the world which have ended in the death of victims and some have remained unsolved. It is truly sad to see innocent children being brutally murdered so young for no apparent reason and also, children continuing to remain missing, while families seek answers.

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There are few things as haunting as child abductions. Whether they end in awful circumstances or remain unsolved, their lingering effects blight families and communities alike. Here are 10 such tragic cases plucked from the annals of crime.

10Pauline Picard

A few unusual facts stood out about the otherwise happy reunion. First, the girl did not seem to recognize her parents. Second, she did not respond to them when they spoke to her in their native Breton. Dismissing these peculiarities, Pauline's parents took her back to the farm, where the neighbors quickly affirmed that she was Pauline, and the whole ordeal seemed to end on a happy note.

About a month later, a neighboring farmer walking near the Picard farm stumbled upon something horrifying: the mutilated and decomposing body of a young girl next to her neatly folded clothes. He alerted the authorities, who arrived at the gruesome scene along with the town's inhabitants, among them Pauline's parents. Although the young girl's face could not be identified, the Picards made an unsettling realization: the folded clothes were exactly what Pauline had been wearing on the day she disappeared.

The area where the remains were found had been searched thoroughly when Pauline first disappeared, which suggested to detectives that someone had placed the body there fairly recently. The case became even more perplexing when the skull of an adult male was discovered next to Pauline's body, adding a second potential victim to the case.

Early reports from the investigation indicated that there was one possible suspect. A few days prior to the discovery of the body, a middle-aged farmer visited the Picard farm and asked them whether they were sure that the girl from Cherbourg was really Pauline. He then stated "God forgive me, I am guilty," erupted into hysterical laughter, and was hauled off to an insane asylum.

Even so, a myriad of questions still baffled officials and Pauline's parents. If the body in the woods was Pauline, as the evidence suggested, then what had happened to her? Was the laughing man the killer? How was the unidentified skull related to Pauline's murder? And who was the little girl from Cherbourg who had been living with the Picards for a month? It remains unclear whether these questions were ever answered: No definitive records exist of a resolution to this story.

9Elsie Paroubek

Two days later, workers in the town of Joliet made a grim discovery: the body of a young girl floating in a drainage canal. It was Elsie. The medical examiner found that she had not drowned in the canal but had likely been suffocated. There were cuts on the left side of her face and indications that she had been "attacked" before her death.

Despite the Chicago PD's resolve to find the killer, the investigation was hindered by conflicting eyewitness reports and a number of dead ends. In the end, Elsie's homicide was never solved. Her father passed away two years later on the anniversary of his daughter's funeral, never knowing what really happened to her.

There's an interesting addendum to this case: Elsie's photograph from The Chicago Daily News was the main inspiration for Henry Darger's The Story of the Vivian Girls, which is considered one of the most bizarre books ever written.

8Michael Dunahee

Canadian police launched a massive search for Michael and amassed a number of tips from the public, none of which panned out. Twenty years after his disappearance, the Victoria police department continues to investigate. Most recently, there was widespread speculation in a small British Columbia town that a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Michael may have been the missing child, but DNA tests determined that he was not.

The last unconfirmed sighting of Michael was in June 1991, when a man attempted to abduct a seven-year-old girl in New Jersey. The girl and a friend claimed to have seen a little boy matching Michael's description in the backseat of the man's car. However, this sighting has not brought police any closer to discovering Michael's fate, nor have any of the hundreds of other tips from the public throughout the years.

7Marjorie West

On the night of her disappearance, a cab driver in West Virginia witnessed a distraught girl matching Marjorie's description riding with an unidentified man in a green car. The man asked for directions to the nearest motel but left when he was told there were no vacancies. The same man was also seen at a nearby gas station earlier in the evening with a child bundled up in his backseat. Neither the child nor the man were ever identified. Speculation was rife that Marjorie may have been kidnapped and sold to a childless couple by a corrupt adoption agency, but no evidence has ever backed up this claim.

6Alessia And Livia Schepp

Alessia and Livia Schepp are six-year-old twin sisters from Switzerland who were last seen on January 30, 2011. Their father, who was separated from their mother, picked up the girls from their home for a scheduled weekend visit. When he failed to return with the girls at the end of the weekend, a manhunt was launched that spanned three countries.

The investigation found that the twins' father, Matthias Schepp, drove to France with the girls and withdrew cash from several places before taking a ferry to Italy. A few days later, his body was found on a set of train tracks in Italy, where he had committed suicide. However, there was no trace of the girls. Before killing himself, he sent a postcard to his estranged wife stating that the girls were "resting in peace," but there was no definitive proof that they were murdered, and their bodies have never been found.

5Fernando Marti

Fernando's father was prepared to pay a hefty sum to save his son. According to reports, a ransom of over $2 million was paid, with no response from the kidnappers. After weeks of waiting, Fernando's decomposing body was found in the trunk of a car. He had been dead for a month. The investigation revealed that a number of corrupt police officers were complicit in planning the abduction and that gang members had executed Fernando shortly after the kidnapping.

4Morgan Nick

Witnesses reported seeing a strange man watch the children play, and some of the children in the group stated that a man had spoken to Morgan directly. A red pickup truck with an attached camper was also seen leaving the parking lot around the time Morgan disappeared.

Police have a composite sketch of the unidentified man who was seen talking to Morgan that evening but little else to go on. Almost 20 years after her disappearance, they are still actively searching for Morgan. Her bereaved mother founded the Morgan Nick Foundation to aid families of missing children.

3Masego Kgomo

Police quickly cornered five suspects but only had enough evidence to officially try one of them. Meanwhile, an angry mob burned down two of the suspects' homes and protested outside the courthouse in waves, demanding swift, vigilante-style justice.

The protestors were outraged by the particularly brutal nature of Masego's murder. The trial featured grisly testimony about how she was abducted and mutilated alive by a sangoma (a traditional health practitioner) so her organs could be used to make medicinal remedies. The accused, who showed little remorse during the shocking testimony, was sentenced to life in prison for Masego's murder, but due to scant evidence against them, the other conspirators ultimately walked.

2Marion Parker

After several terrifying exchanges, Marion's father agreed to meet the kidnapper in downtown Los Angeles at night, where he would hand over $1,500 for his daughter. At the meeting, Mr. Parker could faintly see his daughter sitting in the passenger seat of the kidnapper's darkened car, appearing to be alive and well, and quickly handed over the cash. Marion was dumped on the sidewalk, and the car sped away. When Mr. Parker approached his daughter, however, he was horrified by what he saw. It was Marion's lifeless torso. Her legs and arms had been severed, her eyes had been sewn open to give the appearance that she was alive, and various organs had been removed from her body and dumped all over Los Angeles.

The extensive manhunt for "The Fox" quickly narrowed in on its main suspect, a disgruntled former employee of Marion's father named William Hickman. He was apprehended a week later, brought back to Los Angeles, convicted of Marion's murder, and executed a year later at San Quentin.

1The Frog Boys

These efforts proved fruitless, and 10 years passed with no sign of them. Then, in 2002, two men picking acorns on Mount Waryong discovered the remains of the five boys not far from where they had originally disappeared. The bodies appeared to be huddled together, so police initially believed the boys had died from exposure. However, a number of disturbing clues arose during the forensic investigation.

The boys had sustained severe damage to their skulls, and forensic specialists soon concluded that they had been murdered. The cause of death was attributed to cranial injuries from various objects, including a screwdriver. Police pledged to find the person or people responsible for the depraved crime, but no suspects have ever been arrested. In 2006, the statute of limitations for their murder passed. The case was officially closed, the mystery of what happened to the Frog Boys no closer to being solved than when they had first disappeared.

K. Fane spends her free time pursuing obscure tangents and indulging in useless hobbies. She lives in California.

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10 Tragic And Terrifying Child Abductions - Listverse

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There are few things as haunting as child abductions. Whether they end in awful circumstances or remain unsolved, their lingering effects blight families and communities alike. Here are 10 such tragic cases plucked from the annals of crime. A few unusual facts stood out about the otherwise happy reunion.

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The video relates the concern of Canadian parents to fight for the establishment of the law act iCHAPEU which means International Child Harbouring & Abduction Prevention Enforcement Act Under-Law. To bring awareness, it shows the faces of abducted Canadian children and the countries which they have been abducted from and moved to.

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International Child Harbouring & Abduction Prevention Enforcement Act Under-Law

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Parental Alienation & Parental Abduction

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Help STOP Parental Child Abductions - Canada's iCHAPEAU Law Act Proposal

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iCHAPEAU PSA VIDEO - Help STOP Parental Child Abductions: A group of Canadian Parents are proposing a new Federal and Provincial Canadian Law called the: iCHAPEAU Act. The iCHAPEAU stands for the International Child Harbouring & Abduction Prevention Enforcement Act Under-Law.

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Joey Salads conducts an experiment where he asks three parents how often they talk to their children about strangers and then goes to the children of the parents with a puppy to see how they respond. In all three cases, the children were ready to follow Joey to see more puppies, which shows how easily children can be abducted by strangers if they are not warned by parents.

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This picture shows how easy it is for a child to be lured and present a stranger with the perfect opportunity to abduct them. It is important to educate children about the dangers of talking to or accepting things from strangers.

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It is not at all uncommon to see missing children posters where ever you go. It helps to bring awareness of child abductions and assist police in doing their jobs so that victims can be reunited safely and quickly with their families. Rewards are usually offered to persons who may have information that is useful in finding the missing child.

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Child abduction is a form of child abuse

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Child abduction is a form of child abuse

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The picture sends a powerful message about the damage done to a child after being abducted by a parent. Many victims are told the other parent does not want them or is dead, which causes them to suffer emotionally. There are long term life effects of child abduction on the victims.

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High profile cases of children who survived abduction

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High profile cases of children who survived abduction

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While the chances of abducted children being returned home alive is reduced the longer they remain missing, there is still hope. The article relates eight cases from all over the world where victims were held in captivity for years before escaping or being freed, and the convictions their abductors were declared.

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Reports of children going missing in Canada are a daily occurrence, but cases of children being abducted and held for extended periods are relatively rare.

The Canadian government recorded 41,035 official reports of missing children in Canada in 2013, and 33 of the cases were attributed to abduction by strangers. During the 2012-2013 fiscal year, Missing Children Society of Canada worked a total caseload of 251 registered files, closing 170 of them.

While uncommon, there are cases where abductors keep their victims captive for long periods of time.

On Wednesday, for example, police in Los Angeles reported they'd made an arrest in the case of a 25-year-old woman who said she was abducted in California a decade ago by a man who forced her to marry him and who fathered her child. The woman, whose name is being withheld, came forward to police on Monday after finding her sister on Facebook. Police described a decade during which the now 25-year-old woman - abused mentally, physically and sexually by her captor - was moved at least four times and given multiple fake identities to hide her from family and authorities.

Here are eight cases from around the world of people abducted as children and held for years before escaping or being freed.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight

A 911 call on May 6, 2013, led police to a house near downtown Cleveland, Ohio, where three women were found. Police say Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight had all disappeared in the Cleveland area and had been held inside the house for about a decade.

Michelle Knight disappeared Aug. 22, 2002, at age 20, according to police. It was thought at first that she had left home on her own.

Amanda Berry went missing during the evening on April 21, 2003, after calling her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. It was the day before her 17th birthday. Her six-year-old daughter was also in the house when Berry was freed.

Gina DeJesus vanished in Cleveland after leaving school on the afternoon of April 2, 2004. She was 14 years old at the time.

"I heard screaming," said neighbour Charles Ramsey, who helped rescue Berry. "I'm eating my McDonald's. I come outside. I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house."

Neighbour Anna Tejeda aid one of her friends went over and told Berry how to kick the screen out of the bottom of the locked door, which allowed her to get out. When Berry told her she'd been kidnapped and held captive, Tejeda said she gave her the telephone to call police, who arrived within minutes and then took the other women from the house.

Police arrested Ariel Castro, 52, later the same day. In July 2013 he pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, kidnapping and rape - 937 charges in total. On Sept. 3, 2013, Castro was found dead in his cell.

Jaycee Dugard

In 1991, when she was 11, Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped as she was waiting at a bus stop near her California home.

For 18 years, she was held in a secret backyard compound behind the home of Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, who both later pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault. He was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison; she was sentenced to 36 years to life.

During her captivity, Dugard gave birth to two daughters. In a 2011 interview, she talked through tears about both the pain and determination she felt as she gave birth to her captor's child in his backyard while she was still just a girl herself.

Dugard was clear and composed throughout the interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, but became emotional when she talked about her first glimpse of the first of two girls fathered by Garrido. Dugard's A Stolen Life: A Memoir was published in 2011.

Elisabeth Fritzl

Elisabeth Fritzl disappeared from her town of Amstetten, Austria, in 1984 at age 18.

In 2008, 24 years later, she re-emerged from the dungeon-like basement chamber where her father, Josef, had kept her captive.

Joseph had raped her thousands of times, and Elisabeth bore him seven children, one of whom died in captivity after Josef refused to allow medical treatment.

Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a prison psychiatric ward in March 2009.

Elisabeth Fritzl and her children were given new identities.

Natascha Kampusch

Natascha Kampusch was snatched on her way to school in 1998 and held for eight years in a small cellar under the garage of her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, in Austria.

She made a dramatic escape in 2006 at age 18, and eventually described repeated physical and mental abuse inflicted on her by Priklopil, who committed suicide hours after she escaped.

In her first interview, Kampusch said she "thought only of escape" throughout her ordeal and repeatedly wondered why she was the child snatched by Priklopil. Kampusch said she was rarely allowed to go outside her cell in a suburb of Vienna. She was allowed to watch television and videos, listen to the radio and read books.

After escaping, she continued to live in Vienna and began hosting a TV show in June 2008.

Fusako Sano

Before her disappearance on Nov. 13, 1990, in her northern Japanese hometown of Sanjo, nine-year-old Fusako Sano had been watching a school baseball game.

She was held for nine years and two months by a man who kept her on the upstairs floor of the apartment he shared with his mother, who lived downstairs.

The young woman was found after the man's mother called officials from a hospital asking them to take a look at her son because his actions seemed strange.

Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart was abducted at age 14 from the bedroom she shared with her nine-year-old sister in Salt Lake City, Utah.

She was found nine months later.

Smart testified in excruciating detail about waking up in the early hours of June 5, 2002, to the feel of a cold, jagged knife at her throat and being whisked away by Brian David Mitchell to his camp in the foothills near the Smart family home.

Within hours of the kidnapping, she testified, she was stripped of her favourite red pyjamas, draped in white religious robes and forced into a polygamous marriage with Mitchell.

She was tethered to a metal cable strung between two trees, subjected to near-daily rapes, and forced to use alcohol and drugs.

Mitchell was convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for sex and is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

After being freed, Smart became an activist and journalist, and also created the Elizabeth Smart Foundation that works to prevent crimes against children.

Steven Stayner

Steven Stayner was abducted while walking home from school in Merced, Calif., in 1972. The seven-year-old boy was forced to live as the foster son of his abductor, who sexually abused him until he escaped seven years later.

That escape came when Stayner walked into a police station with another boy, Timothy Lee White, who had been snatched by his abductor. Stayner told police he didn't want the younger child to face the same abuse he had.

Their abductor, Kenneth Parnell, was convicted of two counts of kidnapping and died in prison in January 2008.

Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1989.

Shawn Hornbeck

Shawn Hornbeck had last been seen riding his bike in October 2002 near his home in Richwoods, Mo.

He was found four years later, at age 15, along with another teen, in the apartment of Michael Devlin in suburban St. Louis by police executing a routine search warrant.

Devlin, a former pizza parlour manager, was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against Hornbeck and the Missouri boy he kidnapped. Both boys were sexually abused.The boys had disappeared 4½ years and about 65 kilometres apart, but both were last seen in towns within 100 kilometres of St. Louis.

The families of the two boys said their rescue was the end of a nightmare.

Abby Drover

Abby Drover was 12 years old in March 1976 when she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a neighbour, Donald Alexander Hay. She was held for 181 days in a hidden cement bunker under Hay's garage in the Vancouver suburb of Port Moody before being rescued.

Hay had pretended to help police in the search for the missing girl, who was chained and slowly starving to death in the secret room accessed through a cupboard in the garage. The search turned up no trace of the girl.

Drover was finally discovered when Hay's wife called police to investigate because Hay had been behaving strangely.

Hay, who said he was an alcoholic and not in control of himself at the time of the abduction, was sentenced to life in prison in 1977. He was denied parole in 1997, in January 2001 and again in December 2006 when he told the parole board he "felt sorry" for his victim and prays for her every day, but did not make an apology for his behaviour. In July 2008 Hay cancelled a parole hearing that had been scheduled for December, but gave no reasons.

Hay died on June 3, 2012, at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon at the age of 79.

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Child Abductions: 8 high-profile cases of survivors | CBC News

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Reports of children going missing in Canada are a daily occurrence, but cases of children being abducted and held for extended periods are relatively rare. The Canadian government recorded 41,035 official reports of missing children in Canada in 2013, and 33 of the cases were attributed to abduction by strangers.

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Sometimes children do not always survive abductions and that is the sad reality. Abduction is sometimes followed by rape and murder. The article relates statistical data on child abduction in Canada, including information on offenders, common patterns in and methods of abduction.

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One hundred and fifty-five children have been abducted and murdered in Canada since 1970, most of them young girls snatched near their homes and killed within a few hours by predators with criminal records, according to a survey by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

The findings, which reveal an unprecedented look at child abduction and murder in Canada, are based on public records, court decisions and media reports on cases dating back nearly 50 years.

The study excludes cases where the person responsible (or believed to be responsible) was a parent of the child or close relative.

These cases involve strangers or acquaintances who target children as young as 2, plan an approach, abduct and kill them, according to the preliminary study, obtained exclusively by the Toronto Star. The full study is to be released later this year.

"We were inspired to do this difficult analysis with the idea that what one single child's story may not be able say, the collective voice of many, could," says Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Winnipeg-based Centre for Child Protection. "Something that was very impactful was the heinous nature of the crimes committed against the children.

"The degree of violence and brutality is horrifying."

This data question how well children are protected by Canada's justice system.

Fifty-five per cent of offenders had a prior criminal record and 29 per cent of those were convicted of a prior violent or sexual offence against a child.

Lesley Parrott's daughter, Alison, was abducted and murdered in Toronto in 1986.

Alison was 11 and lured to Varsity Stadium for a photo shoot. Her body was found two days later near the Humber River.

Undated photo of Alison Parrott. (Supplied Photo)

Francis Carl Roy, who was convicted of Alison's murder, had been on parole for raping two teenage girls.

"I do think there is real opportunity here for good impact on policies and understanding on the part of families, educators, police, parole boards and judges," says Parrott. "The things that jump out at me is the parole situation, the luring was there, the murder happening within hours. All the way through there are things that speak to our situation."

Roy remains in prison.

Here is a partial story - by the numbers - of what the study reveals:
Who are the offenders?
92 per cent of Canada's child murderers are men.

68 per cent of them are Caucasian in their 20s (the average age is 26 with nearly a quarter under the age of 18).

55 per cent of offenders had a criminal record when the offence was committed. At least 33 per cent of those had committed a violent or sexual offence against a child.

22 per cent of the offenders were either on parole, probation or out on bail.

80 per cent of offenders remain incarcerated or are being held in a medical facility.

30 offenders are currently eligible for some form of parole.

8 offenders are eligible for full parole within the next five years.

4 offenders are currently on parole.
Timeline:
3 hours: In the vast majority of cases, the child victims were sexually abused and then killed, usually within three hours (Time between abductions and murders was determined for 60 per cent of the victims in the study).

"It's easier and safer to simply dispose of the child," says Michael Bourke, chief of the behavioural analysis unit for the United States Marshals Service and an international expert in child sex offender profiling.

"Once he's done with her, she's a burden ... (The child's) purpose was to satisfy their sexual predilections, or to get back at their ex-wife, or whatever. But once that's satisfied, they're done. They have no interest in getting (the child) medical attention. They have no desire to continue listening to (the child) complain and beg."

The most common patterns in abduction cases:

"Many of the victims in the study were engaged in everyday, regular activities and the offender exploits and takes advantage of that moment in time to abduct the child," says McDonald. "The child is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

84 per cent of victims were girls and 16 per cent were boys.

11.6 years old was their average age.

77 per cent were Caucasian.

45 per cent were abducted on Friday or Saturday.

53 per cent happened between 3:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

41 per cent occurred in June, July and August.

"The time of year when these occur is likely attributable to access," says Bourke. "The kids are out of school and are walking or playing in their neighbourhood when they are taken."

68 per cent of the children were alone.

67 per cent were travelling in transit between home and school, the mall, a park or a friend's house.

68 per cent of the abductions took place within blocks of the child's home or school.

29 per cent of offenders lived in the neighbourhoods where the abduction happened.

55 per cent of offenders used a vehicle of some kind in the abduction.
Methods of abduction:
"There are generally no witnesses to the abduction of a child and so it is very difficult to determine if the abductor physically forced the victim to accompany her/him initially, or if the tactic used was more subtle, such as a ruse or lure," the study says.

In fewer than 20 per cent of abductions, force appeared to have been used.

37 per cent of the victims were held within walking distance of where they were last seen, the study says. "Serial offenders" tended to take them farther away.

77 per cent of the offender's purpose was sexual, according to "a combination of medical evidence, a legal finding made in the court proceedings, or an admission by the offender."

100 per cent of the instances that involved a serial offender were sexually motivated.

55 per cent of victims for whom body-location site was known were found outside of a populated area such as a city or a town.

76 per cent of the bodies were found within a month.

41 per cent were found by a member of the public and 20 per cent were located by police.

"It is the parent's worst nightmare. I've been there," says Wilma Derksen, cited in the study, whose daughter, Candace, was abducted and murdered at age 13.

"It is important to set up preventative measures so that no parent ever has to face that moment - ever - and for those cases where it was unpreventable, then there needs to be a system of support so that the parents at least have the assurance they don't need to face the darkness alone."

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Child abduction and murder data paint chilling new portrait | The Star

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One hundred and fifty-five children have been abducted and murdered in Canada since 1970, most of them young girls snatched near their homes and killed within a few hours by predators with criminal records, according to a survey by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

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Parental Child Abduction Victims Speak Out

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Parental Child Abduction Victims Speak Out

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The video contains victims telling their parental child abduction stories, relating what they were told by their abductor and how they were rescued. Victims also highlighted the fact that parental child abduction is just as bad as stranger abduction, and is in fact more common than stranger abduction.

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International Parental Child Abduction Hearing

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Example of Online Mediation of International Parental Child Abduction Case

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CARI Child Abduction Recovery International

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Take Root Parental Child Abduction Victims speak out