she is trying to set the record straight about her relationship with the man who police say killed her mother and brother. we re talking about james dimaggio. topping off the list of what she wants to correct here, those 13 phone calls and text messages she exchanged with dimaggio the day she was kidnapped. listen to what she said on the today show. the phone calls weren t phone calls. they were texts because he was picking me up from cheer camp, and he didn t know the address or like where i was so i had to tell him the address and tell him that i was going to be in the gym and not in front of the school and just so he knew where to come get me. i want to bring in stephanie elam in san diego following this. stephanie, first of all, is there a sense of a need that she feels to set the record straight? why does she feel she has to explain herself? is she faced with criticism in the social media world? reporter: she has been dealing with a lot of that.
and the murders. and it was list listed by police in the warns. she gave an emotional description of her little brother, ethan, spoke about her mother, and talked about all of the public reaction, much of it negative, to her abduction. plus, she explained the reasons for posting pictures and talking online. have a listen. the phone calls weren t phone calls. they were textings because he was picking me up from cheer camp and he didn t know the address or, like, where i was so, i had to tell him the address and tell him that i was going to be in the gym and not in front of the school just so he knew where to come get me. the letters were from like a yo year ago when me and my mom weren t getting along very good. me and him were talking about how to deal with it and he helped me through it. they weren t anything bad. they were just to help me through tough times.
just wants to go home. a 16-year-old girl from california is thanking her rescuers after investigators say a family friend killed her mother and brother and kidnapped her. hannah anderson spoke with nbc news in her first interview since horseback riders spotted her with james dimaggio in the wilderness of idaho and an fbi team saved her. she corrected a report that she called dimaggio 13 times before he grabbed her. the phone calls weren t phone calls. they weren t texts, because he was picking me up from cheer camp, and he didn t know the address, like, where i was, so i had to tell him the address, tell him that i was going to be in the gym, not in front of the school, you say so he knew where to come get me. shepard: dimaggio died after a shootout with fbi agents nearly two weeks ago now. investigators report that teenagers accused of killing a man for fun were essentially raising themselves.
going to try to come back and ban assault rifles and ban high-capacity magazines. some of the things that senator blumenthal was talking about which is a much more liberal approach to gun control, he s argued that s why we need to take a more common sense approach, like his bill with senator toomey that would make expand background checks and get to the issue of mentally ill and criminals not having guns. thanks so much to both of you. thank you, chris. of course, we want to remind you about the president s speech later today in buffalo. we ll have it live at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. meantime, we ve got the first exclusive interview with hannah anderson. setting the record straight about those phone calls the day she was kidnapped by james lee dimaggio. here s what she told the today show. the phone calls weren t phone calls, they were texts. he was picking me up from cheer camp and he didn t know the address or where i was so i had to tell him the address and tell
calls, they were texts because he was picking me up from cheer camp and he didn t know the address or what like where i was so i had to tell him the address and tell him that i was going to be in the gym and not in front of the school just so he knew where to come get me. that s 16-year-old hannah anderson describing her final hours of freedom before james dimaggio abducted her from san diego and led authorities on a cross-country chase. dimaggio s violent rampage started at his own home in the san diego neighborhood where he killed her mother christina and her 8-year-old brother ethan then he set fire to his home where they later found letters to hannah written to dimaggio. in the letters, they were from like a year ago when me and my mom weren t getting along very well, me and him would talk about how to deal with it and i d tell him how i felt about it and he d help me through it.