A close family friend suspected of abducting a 16-year old girl after killing her mother and younger brother fired his rifle at FBI agents before they killed him deep in the Idaho wilderness, authorities said Monday.
Hannah Anderson didn’t know her mother and brother were dead until she was rescued from 40-year-old James Lee DiMaggio, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said.
“I can’t make it any clearer: She was a victim in this case. She was not a willing participant,” Gore said at a news conference with Hannah’s father, Brett Anderson.
Hannah reunited with family in San Diego to begin what her father said would be a slow recovery.
“She has been through a tremendous, horrific ordeal,” said Brett Anderson, who declined to answer questions and pleaded for privacy.
DiMaggio fired at least once and perhaps twice during the shootout with the FBI, the sheriff said.
A friend who runs a behavioral treatment center in West Hollywood said DiMaggio seems to have followed in the footsteps of his father, who committed suicide in 1998, in a carefully laid plan.
“He clearly had a death wish,” Andrew Spanswick said.
DiMaggio is suspected of killing Hannah’s mother, 44-year-old Christina Anderson, and the teen’s 8-year-old brother, Ethan Anderson, and leaving their bodies in his burning home near San Diego on Aug. 4.
Spanswick said DiMaggio’s father disappeared exactly 15 years before the house was set on fire.
James Everet DiMaggio was addicted to methamphetamine and had a troubled life marred by criminal activity, Spanswick said. His cause of death was listed as dehydration, but he consumed a large amount of methamphetamine intravenously and “walked into the desert,” he said.
The elder DiMaggio was arrested in 1988 after breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend, wearing a ski mask and a carrying a sawed-off shotgun and handcuffs, Spanswick said. The former girlfriend wasn’t home, but DiMaggio held her 16-year daughter and her boyfriend at gunpoint. The girl escaped after asking to use the bathroom.
The victim of the kidnapping attempt — now an adult — told a television station that her attacker professed his love after breaking up with her mother and announced he was taking her away to “give me a good life.”
The younger DiMaggio was extraordinarily close to the Anderson family, driving Hannah to gymnastics meets and Ethan to football practice.
Authorities have said DiMaggio may have had an “unusual infatuation” with Hannah, although the father said he never saw any strange behavior.
Brett Anderson thanked the horseback riders who reported seeing the pair near an alpine lake, saying the search might have taken much longer without them.
The massive search spanning much of the Western United States and parts of Canada and Mexico probably would have taken longer if not for a sharp-eyed retired sheriff and three other horseback riders in the rugged backcountry hadn’t seen the pair Wednesday.
Mark John, who retired as a Gem County sheriff in 1996, shared his suspicions with the Idaho State Police after encountering DiMaggio and the girl on the trail. That enabled investigators to focus efforts on a specific portion of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, a roadless 3,600-square-mile preserve in the heart of Idaho.
“They just didn’t fit,” said John, 71. “He might have been an outdoorsman in California, but he was not an outdoorsman in Idaho. … Red flags kind of went up.”
Initially, it was the lack of openness on the trail and a reluctance to engage in the polite exchange of banter like so many other recreationists John has encountered during horseback excursions.
But more than anything, it was their gear — or lack of it. Neither was wearing hiking boots or rain gear. DiMaggio, described as an avid hiker in his home state of California, was toting only a light pack. It even appeared Anderson was wearing pajama bottoms.
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