Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And the story I have you today is one that you may have heard of before, and one that you might think you already know.

It's about a little girl who was abducted on her way to school and held for almost two decades by a sick, evil man and his wife.

But unlike many of the stories we tell you on this show, this one actually has a happy ending because this young woman had the will to survive against all odds and wisdom beyond her years on how to do that.

This is an important episode that I want you to hear because it is going to change what you think you know about abduction cases and give you important information about how people often survive in cases like this.

And it's different than what you've been told for years. This is the story of JC Dewgard.

It's about 8.30 a.m. on June 10, 1991, when a dispatcher at the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office in California picks up a call coming through their emergency line.

The dispatcher gets the man's name, Carl, and his address, which is in South Lake Tahoe, California.

Officers from the Sheriff's Office are the first to arrive on scene where they meet a frantic Carl.

He explains that he was working in the garage that morning when his 11-year-old stepdaughter, JC Dewgard, left to walk to the bus stop.

And it's not a long walk, and so both he and JC's mother Terry feel comfortable letting her go on her own.

Terry's always at work by the time JC leaves, though, so in the morning it's usually just him and JC and his and Terry's one-year-old daughter.

That morning, as JC was walking up the hill by their house, Carl noticed a two-tone gray sedan drive passed and up the hill towards her.

He didn't think anything of it until a few seconds later when he heard a scream.

He says he looked up, saw that the sedan had pulled over, and JC was being pulled into the car by the man who was driving.

And before he could do anything, they sped away. Carl said that he immediately jumped on his bike and tried to go after them.

But a little ways up the hill he realized that he wasn't going to be able to catch up.

So he raced back down and screamed to his neighbors to call 911.

Unfortunately, by the time he made it down the hill and back towards his house, a neighbor had already dialed.

Now, he didn't get a good look at the people who took JC, but he was able to briefly see that there were two of them,

a man in the driver's seat and a woman on the passenger side who had dark hair. But that's all he can give police.

They immediately spring into action and call in multiple other agencies to join in on the search, including the FBI, California Highway Patrol, and officers from South Lake Tahoe.

Edgar Sanchez and Mark Glover reported for the Sacramento Bee that they even go so far as to bring in officers from a few counties in Nevada,

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