What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
Alicia Kozakiewicz: Unbreakable
Ever wondered about the darker side of the internet and its role in child abduction? This episode unveils the heart-stopping ordeal of Alicia Kozakiewicz, a 13-year-old girl who was preyed upon and abducted from her Pennsylvania home in 2002. As we unravel this chilling narrative, we venture into the unfamiliar territory of the early internet era, emphasizing its potential dangers. We discuss Alicia's online interactions with a stranger that led to her abduction, stressing the importance of not attributing blame to her. We applaud her for her bravery, especially during her terrifying transportation ordeal when she attempted to jump out of the moving car.
In the episode's second half, we switch our focus to the commendable efforts exerted in finding Alicia. Understand the instrumental role played by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the power of missing posters in our battle against child exploitation. We critically examine the case of Scott Tyree, Alicia's abductor, and question the concept of second chances in the light of horrific crimes. We encourage you to stay vigilant in your communities, reinforcing the idea that every glance at a missing person poster could potentially save a life. This episode is not just a story, but a call to action. Let Alicia Kozakiewicz's story remind us of the importance of looking out for each other.
"Kidnapped by a pedophile I met online"-BBC News 3-7-2016
"Sex offender who targeted Pittsburgh girl online..." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 10-2-2019
"Alicia's Story-Kidnapped and held captive" Oprah.com
Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com
Background music by Michael Shuller Music
Good evening and welcome to what we Lose in the Shadows.
Speaker 2:A father-daughter true crime podcast.
Speaker 1:My name is James Keyes.
Speaker 2:I'm Caroline. Good morning everyone. I hope you are all having a good start to your day. If you're listening to this on the way to work or if you're listening to this in the afternoon, I hope your day has been good. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well. How about you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well, so today is going to be a tough case. I think I say that every time, but they're all so tough, it's just so shitty. The trigger warnings for today are grooming, pedophilia and rape. So, dad, do you remember when the internet became popular?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, back in the 90s it started. Back in the 90s, probably early 2000s, it started to become something that you heard about.
Speaker 2:Can you tell me your experience with the internet when it was first coming out?
Speaker 1:So at first we didn't have, like, we didn't have great like routers or anything like that. So you would phone in, you would actually call on your phone to these numbers, right, and then it would crackle and your information would come over your phone line. So you dial into whatever service you were using, you know, and it would just be like this Everything was so slow. If you found something a piece of music or an article or anything like that you would download it. It would just be so long to download this stuff because all the equipment was so antiquated and you know, there were very few things you could find and you'd be looking for something and then it would freeze. Yeah, it wasn't very, it wasn't state of the art. I mean, it was state of the art then, but compared to now, nothing.
Speaker 2:Do you think it would have been different had you been a 13 year old girl at that time?
Speaker 1:Well, of course it would be different if it was a 13 year old girl. Sure, because I mean you were, I mean you were younger when the internet came online, but you know you weren't super interested and it wasn't quite popular yet. It was on the way, right?
Speaker 2:Okay, so today we're going to be discussing the case of Alicia Kozakiewicz, or Kozak. She was 13 in the year of 2001. She had been living with her family in the suburban part of Pennsylvania, not too far outside of Pittsburgh. Similar to you, she had been exploring the internet during her Christmas vacation, as most young children were at that age. Even adults at the time, like you said, were still somewhat new to using the internet, since it had only been around for like a decade or so in the 2000s.
Speaker 2:So Alicia had been chatting online with her friends from school and met some new friends online as well. She started writing back and forth with a boy who said that he was her age. They became fast friends and would often get advice from each other about their daily problems. They were interested in the same things and got along really well, and this went on for eight or nine months and then they decided they wanted to meet. So New Year's Day, which would be New Year's 2002, it was a holiday that the Kozakwicz family enjoyed celebrating. Alicia and her family had a meal of pork and sauerkraut, which I can relate to, since my grandmother was Polish. On the other side of my mom's side, we would often be served sauerkraut and kielbasa.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely, your mother loved that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was interesting. Alicia describes this meal with her family as some of the last moments her childhood was peaceful. Later to BBC, alicia asked her mom if she could go lie down because she had a stomach ache when she got up and left the table. She didn't go lie down, she went and slipped out the front door into the night. She wanted to meet up with her friend online. Now I want to mention that sneaking out as a teenager is not uncommon. I snuck out a few times. I know you snuck out when you were younger.
Speaker 1:I've heard the stories Never.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely you did.
Speaker 1:I was perfect. I was an ideal child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know about that. I think most people can relate to wanting a taste of freedom as a teenager. You know, these things are common and I think it's really important to remember that. You know, just because something bad happened to her does not mean that it's at her fault in any way, shape or form for sneaking out. It happens. Most children at least, try to sneak out. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I really want to make sure that the guilt lies entirely on the perpetrator. She remembers walking down the road and noticing an eerie silence, and she also remembers her intuition kicking in and thinking how dangerous it was that she was out there alone. Alicia turned to walk back to her house and your identity remains missing. She heard someone calling her name. Alicia says that all of a sudden she was in the vehicle with a man and she was scared for her life. Now, when Alicia was in the car, she remembers him commanding her to be good and be quiet or he would throw her in the trunk.
Speaker 2:She convinced herself that he wouldn't go far. She was young, she was 13. Right, she looked at the street signs and realized that slowly they became cities she'd never heard of. They stopped at a toll booth after some time and Alicia was sure they would recognize her state of distress and call the police. She remembers that crushing feeling of driving out of the toll booth without any commotion.
Speaker 1:I would imagine most people would say at that point it was better than any. It would take an enormous amount of courage to do this at that point, to just jump out of the car.
Speaker 2:People who you know work in these spaces, who are like law enforcement, who are, you know, detectives, private detectives, people who you know study these cases. They say that never let someone take you to a second location ever. She was already in a second location, right? So do you?
Speaker 1:know what I mean. I do absolutely, you know. And there's no, there's no, you know, there's no guarantee that someone at a toll booth would have said hang on, there's something going on here, right, we don't know, we just don't know.
Speaker 2:And again, you know these things, we know now and not everyone knows them now. So it's really important to remind people you fight for your life, right. If you're ever in a situation where someone's trying to take you anywhere Right. Your chances of coming out of the second location are very low compared to you, know, fighting for your life.
Speaker 1:Right. Do you remember a story we did a little bit ago about the? The young lady was kidnapped in oil city and there was another woman that was attempted to kidnap, but she was trying to get thrown into a trunk and she went all out as hard as she could. Now the guy was much bigger and stronger, of course, but she created one hell of a commotion.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And he responded by slamming her on the side book.
Speaker 2:But he realized this was getting to. I got to get out of here and it's it saved your life, so you're exactly right.
Speaker 1:Thank.
Speaker 2:God yeah. So the drive continued for five hours until they arrived at a home in Herndon, virginia. Again, you know we are making these comments about not going to a second location. However, it's understandable that back then especially, you know as a 13 year old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like of course, this has nothing to do with you know her any part of this situation it was 110%, that horrible fucking pervert.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:The drive continued for five hours until they arrived at a home in Herndon, virginia. There Alicia would face true horrors by a man named Scott Tyree. Tyree dragged her into the house down the stairs into his basement. He unlocked a room in his basement which had a padlock on the door and pulled her into it. He undressed her and told her this is going to be really hard for you and it's okay to cry. He put a dog collar on Alicia and dragged her upstairs to his room. She was chained via the collar to his bedroom floor and raped, beaten, tortured for the next four days.
Speaker 2:God yeah he's a true monster. During one of those vicious attacks, Alicia had found the strength to fight back and he broke her nose.
Speaker 1:Self-bid.
Speaker 2:On the fourth day, Alicia was finally fed for the first time since she had been kidnapped. The human piece of garbage, Tyree told her that that day he was starting to like her too much and that they would be going on a car ride that night. Uh-oh, Alicia knew in her gut that he meant to kill her that night. And Alicia prayed for help. She knew that her parents were looking for her. She knew that they would never stop looking for her, but she didn't know if they would find her dead or alive. And that's just so unfair for a 13 year old to be no one should ever be in that situation.
Speaker 2:But it's just, it's so disturbing, right, and what year is this? Again, this was 2002.
Speaker 1:So at that point in time, I mean, there weren't Amber Alerts yet A lot of the organizations that snapped to and really jumped into things weren't keen to you know, your little kids being kidnapped or they thought it was a local thing. You know they didn't put a Bolo out for multiple states. Yeah, so it's a different world now than it was then.
Speaker 2:Right and thank goodness that we have adjusted to. You know the horrible world, you know that kidnaps children, but I'm glad that we have a lot of you know, safeguards and people that are ready and willing to jump into situations like this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely it, it, it. We've learned, but it's been a painful learning process.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's always via loss or abuse. You know it's horrible, but she I forgot to mention that this case Alicia was considered the first online grooming victim and online kidnapping victim.
Speaker 1:Right, because the internet was such in its infancy at that point.
Speaker 2:Right. She was kind of in a daze at this point and that's when she heard fervorous knocking at the front door. She thought that this was it and that she would soon be killed. She heard men screaming. She rolled under the bed when she heard people inside the house, still chained to the floor and naked. She was silent as people walked through the house and she remembers them yelling clear, clear, clear as they walked.
Speaker 1:Police.
Speaker 2:She was confused, she, about who these people were, so she continued hiding. She wanted to be quiet. She didn't know where they were there. Of course, they heard her under the bed at some point and told her to come out from under there with her hands up, because they didn't know what they were, who that was.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:She crawled out pulling the heavy cold metal chain with her around her neck and put her hands up while trying to cover up herself. I know it's so tragic, it's so fucking sad, and she still remembers thinking she was gonna die as she looked up and saw a barrel of a gun pointing down at her.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:The man lowered it and turned around to shout for help, and that's when she saw the letters FBI on the back of his shirt. Then other agents began filing in. They broke the chain from her neck and the FBI rescued her at 4 10 pm. Tyree was due home at 4 30 pm oh. Wow, so it just in the nick of time, exactly, exactly because he could have put up a fight, he could have art, he could have taken her immediately.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He could have. Who knows, who knows, he could have killed her immediately. Right, it was 20 minutes. Had one thing went wrong or one thing been prolonged, she may not have ever been saved or found.
Speaker 1:Well, apparently they were looking for her. Apparently they brought in the FBI quickly Because she was abducted. What for four?
Speaker 2:days Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so during that period of time, the local police reached out to the FBI, her family reached out to the police. The police reached out to the FBI. They realized she was nowhere in town. And how did they find him? Wait, okay.
Speaker 2:To your jumping ahead. I know I'm telling the story. You tell the story. Alicia emphasizes that every second counts when someone's missing, especially a child. During her captivity, her captor was broadcasting himself raping her online. One of the people who saw this video recognized her from the missing poster and called in a tip. He told them that the username he told them the username of the rapist, and the FBI was able to find his IP address. It's so interesting that someone was watching these videos and then reported it, and Alicia describes it as one monster coming forward about another.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean thank God it happened, but it's just. It's so interesting and strange.
Speaker 1:I had no idea. I know that. I know that there's a dark internet. Now we don't even know if this was the dark internet at that point. Well, there wasn't such a thing. I don't think at that point I mean, it was so young of a technology.
Speaker 2:It was probably some guy's personal website. He was a computer Technologist or something.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, and he was 38, right yeah right, but I know that at this point in time there is such a thing as the dark web and and there is something, there's something called back page, saw somewhere that that is another place where they advertise these really horrendous things and, you know, can communicate with one Fucking pedophile to another and scary yeah. So that's amazing that they, the person, saw it and at least had Some scrap of human decency left and said wait a minute, that's, this isn't staged.
Speaker 1:Yeah this is real, because this girl's kidnapped.
Speaker 2:Right. Thank God that happened, though. Alicia and her family were reunited and, after a period of healing, they decided to do something about the horrible situation they found themselves in. They wanted to protect the other young kids from being groomed online and they wanted to educate people about internet safety, so they established the Alisha Project. Alisha goes and talks to children and other groups of people about the dangers of the internet. She talks about how to be safe online. The organization has been around for 17 years and Alisha worked hard with lawmakers to pass Alisha's law, which has passed in all 50 states and required a specific amount of funding to be granted towards internet crimes against children task forces.
Speaker 2:Another great organization that we should talk about in more detail in a separate episode is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They have a cyber tip line where you can report if a child's being sexually exploited online. The number for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is 1-800-THE-LOST or 1-800-843-5678. Contact them if you see a child from a missing poster as they work with the FBI. The last thing that I wanted to talk about is that Alisha states that, like her, most children are found because of their missing posters.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Do you remember when we talked about Lisa Steppin right, who was a mother that disappeared in the town that we lived in in Illinois at that point, I remember that they, on Mother's Day, they had a little flyer, a little picture of Lisa with a little flower attached to it. For the next few weeks, maybe even longer than that, I had that in the car with me because I traveled quite a bit at that point and I just had the picture there and I thought I wished you know, maybe I see this woman, maybe I see her in a car or something like that. Yeah, that's a great thing and it's so with all the high tech things and all the technology we have at this point, sometimes the most simple thing a flyer.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Something that costs you two cents might make the difference in bringing someone home or not. What happened to the guy? Did they put this son of a something away forever?
Speaker 2:Scott Tyree was arrested and sentenced to 17 years behind bars in North Carolina. He was paroled after the 17 years and transferred to a halfway house. Get this in Pittsburgh, close to where her family, her family home was, where he abducted her from Well.
Speaker 1:I don't understand that, because he wasn't even from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Lisha and her family complained about this, of course, and I mean, it's just, it's like a nightmare, like a living nightmare. Why, why, I don't understand.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He of course broke his parole.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He was watching Child Porrin on his computer, which was a violation of his parole. He was then sentenced for two more years, and that was in 2019. So he could be out.
Speaker 1:He could be out now.
Speaker 2:Could be out.
Speaker 1:See, I'm firmly of the opinion that some people are, some people are worth salvaging and some people that do shit like this are not.
Speaker 2:You know I mean so tough because this type of situation, these like sexual violence situations, I truly don't think you can change. But then it's tough because you have to believe that some people can change. But I don't think that we, I don't think our government can make people change. You know what I mean. I think that if people are making poor decisions and I'm typically talking about stealing drugs, like things that are more or less victimless crimes, you know, and there are victims, there can be victims in those crimes, of course, but I'm talking about things that are not physically hurting other people I think that those you know. I think the change needs to come from within, for sure, but these types of sexual assaults and, you know, pedophilia, I don't think will be changed via prison. I also don't think the prison system is a good system in way of rehabilitating people. I don't.
Speaker 1:Right. The recidivism rates are. The rates that people go back into prison are so incredibly high, especially if it's something demented like you know, child pornography or rape or something. Do. I think most people deserve a second chance. You know, a second option, a second chance I do, but for what? But for minor things.
Speaker 1:Exactly For things that you can actually like. Like, if you do, I don't know some kind of a minor crime, and yeah, do you deserve a second chance? For sure, Absolutely. But if something is sinister enough, if you are involved in child pornography, if you were a rapist, a pedophile, if you were a part of a human trafficking ring, I'm sorry. In my opinion, if I were president, there'd be a one-strike policy for that. I'm sorry, that was hideous enough. You're never getting out of prison.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just I don't. I think they have a three-strike rule for violent crimes, but I know that on multiple occasions that never rang true for people like they get out. They get out of jail all the time, like Epstein.
Speaker 1:Right, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like if you have money things don't apply to you, no that's.
Speaker 1:You're unfortunately right, because he had done Epstein had done things like that and he was convicted in Florida for doing having sex with a with a minor, which you would think would land this guy in jail, but I think he did, you know like he had like a weird go to prison and get out of prison during the day or something Like he only had to spend nights there.
Speaker 2:But he was allowed to like leave for the day to go to work. That's insane too. It's stupid. I just what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's absolutely crazy. So no, I just think some things are just evil enough that you just you need to stay in prison for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:I agree. Alicia states that, like her, most children are found from their missing posters, whether or not those are online, on paper, on the highway, however they're seen. Pay attention to these posters, look at them long and hard, imprint those images on your brain. So if you see them in person, you might just save a life. Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.
Speaker 1:And remember. All of the source material will be available in the show notes.
Speaker 2:And follow us on Instagram at what we lose in the shadows and let us know if you want to hear a specific case.
Speaker 1:Or if you just want to give us some feedback.
Speaker 2:Okay, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.
