I do not know if this is a horror story or a happy story, although I suppose it is both.

This is the story of a girl who was abducted at the age of ten, some eight years ago, she was hidden in a cellar for eight years 10 miles (16km) from her home. She has escaped and her captor has committed suicide, presumably to escape punishment.

It is a horror story that this dreadful thing could have happened to her, her captivity and the loss of eight years of her life. Her poor parents must have long since given her up for dead, one wonders if they 'felt' that she was still alive. What joy now, a bittersweet joy, that she has been found safe and well. How much sorrow they must feel for their lost years, missing seeing her grow from a child to a young woman. One wonders if they will feel great anger at this man, and in the fact that he will never be brought to justice for what he has done.

BBC News

This good part about this is that the ending was not tragic.(Criminal just showed his cowardize taking the easy way out). My question is this, here's another missing little girl-gone for an extended period of time, and this wasnt a media circus? Are you telling me that this girl was less important than that Ramsey girl? This should have been splashed everywhere too. Wasn't this tabloid enough for the media? Sorry, got on a rant there....it is just nice to see a happy ending once in a case like this.

I'm glad the girl is safe but, maybe I'm just a complete skeptic sometimes, I wouldn't predict a "happy ending" on this. At least not in the way it might be thought to happen. This young woman and her family are, at best, complete strangers at this point. There has to be some memories within her of her life pre-abduction but I suspect they are as far away as our once-planet Pluto is, figuratively speaking. Her parents are those in name only just as she is their daughter in the same way. I can't fathom where she's at developmentally in any way shape or form but it just can't be in anywhere close to a comfortable place for anybody. My hunch is that it will take at least 8 more years for this "family" to fuse into anything that resembles one. Truth is, they're basically just getting acquainted. And that's the worst of it, I think. This cowardly toad who is responsible for this will never, on this side of the "mysteries", have to face up to that he stole her freedom, her youth (at a very key time of it), her chance to grow without such built-in roadblocks, her "normalcy'. He even stole her attachments, her history, her lines that are so important to one's identity. All this poor woman is now is the person who survived this and lived to tell. Amidst all the wreckage she must be dizzy in at the moment, I'm sure she'd rather not be that "survivor" at all.
I don't pray a whole lot, but I pray for this family. Survival and 'happy' endings come with a sturdy price. Hopefully it will not all be too broken to fix.

She is said to
be a victim of
Stockholm Syndrome , called her captor 'Master', and is said to have wept when she heard of his suicide. This is yet another instance of 'Man's inhumanity to man" When will it ever end?

Let's just hope he didnt die until the third or fourth carriage.

It's so horrible to think what it must have been like to live in that basement for 8 years! I can only hope that the poor girl will be able to get back a bit of normalcy in her life.

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My question is this, here's another missing little girl-gone for an extended period of time, and this wasnt a media circus? Are you telling me that this girl was less important than that Ramsey girl? This should have been splashed everywhere too.

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Like Sue, I had never heard of the 'Ramsey girl' until a few weeks ago. And I read the newspaper on a daily basis. It just didn't get much, if any, media attention here.

To illustrate my comment, I doubt whether the names Jessica Chapman, Holly Wells, Jamie Bulger and Milly Dowler mean much to people outside of the UK, and what about Damiola Taylor? I could name other high profile cases where the names are known to virtually everyone in the UK but will mean nothing to those in the US and virtually any other country.

May they all rest in peace.

I knew straight away who Jessica Chapman, Holly Wells and James Bulger were. I had to looked up the other two children's names - I did hear about the Damiola Taylor case on Australian TV, but I am sure I had never heard of Milly Dowler.

Other British cases I know about if the little African boy whose torso was found in the Thames. I gather he still hasn't been identified. Also the little girl from Nigeria (?)who was brutalised and murdered by her aunt (?).

JonBenet's murder was widely covered in Australia. We also have had coverage of this Austrian girl's case.