effort is mitzy sanchez, she herself disappeared from vallejo in 2000 kidnapped by an excon named curtis dean anderson. unlike anderson's other victims, mitzy escaped. that led to anderson's conviction. >> reporter: searchers from half a dozen different agencies this afternoon descended on this mobile home park on north first street. they used scent detecting dogs to find the suspect. >> he would huddle with his little beer and he would walk straight ahead and he would give you a strange stare as you would drive by in your car. he didn't seem like the type of person you would want to walk up to and say hi to. >> reporter: people noticed anderson because he used two canes to walk. he had been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. he is a three strikes candidate having been convicted of theft and kidnapping. police have not yet released details of the kidnapping conviction only saying that anderson spent three years in san quentin after being convicted in the early 1990. searchers with dogs combed through this boardinghouse on north 13th street where anderson reportedly stayed while working for this luggage retrieval service in santa clara. anderson stopped here yesterday and it was then that mitzy sanchez made her daring escape. >> she saw me, i saw her. she waved me down and i came right here. she came running to the truck saying help me, i've been kidnapped. >> reporter: kyle tafoya says he just happened to be driving by as mitzy grabbed a key and freed herself from the leg chain that police say bound her to anderson's car. >> she was pretty frightened when she jumped in my truck. she really thought that guy was going to try to come and kill her. >> reporter: one of tafoya's coworkers was talking to him. and he was spooked. >> yesterday he asked me for a garbage bag. >> he didn't say what the bag was for? >> no he didn't say anything about the garbage bag. >> reporter: what are you saying now? >> now i'm thinking something else. >> reporter: florez says he was about to show anderson where to grab a bag when mitzy freed herself and anderson ran off. >> mitzy took the witness stand and calmly pointed out the man who swept her off the street. >> reporter: superior court judge allen carter banned cameras from his solano county courthouse as this man anderson went on trial and the star witness took the stand to testify against him. her head barely higher than the rail, the 8-year-old victim in the case calmly pointed to anderson and identified him as the man who kidnapped and sexually molested her last august. the little girl clutched her teddy bear and answered in a clear voice. she said anderson ordered her into his car as she walked to school. she described in detail the way she says he touched her body. then talked confidencely about the day she escaped when anderson left her car: how she unlocked her ankle chain and how she ran to a driver. >> strong little kid. >> reporter: during cross- examination, anderson's court appointed attorney seemed to place the blame work on the girl. that she told friends she wanted to run away from home, she denied she said that. >> because of the conversations happened. yeah she said the conversations happened then i don't need to call the kids. >> that upsets the guardian of one of the children. >> she heard something from another girl. she told the police what she had heard and now she's down getting drug into court over something she heard second party. so to me it's just, a bunch of bs that she even has to be here. >> reporter: in may of 2001, a jury convicted anderson on one count of kidnapping and 10 counts of child molesting. the judge sentenced him to 251 years in prison. 4-1/1/2 years later, anderson would plead guilty to molester and murdering another little girl. her remains were found in the santa cruz mountains. anderson was serving a 300 year sentence when he died from an undisclosed illness in december of 2007. in philadelphia another little girl used her whits to get freed after she was kidnapped for ransom. erin mcginnis describes how the girl freed herself in this report from july of 2002. >> reporter: 7-year-old erica pratt returned home last night after a harrowing 24 hours. she was taken to an abandoned house and locked in the basement. late yesterday erica made an amazing escape. police say she freed herself by chewing through the duct tape that was binding her arms and legs. she then pulled the duct tape off her eyes and began looking for a way out. >> we don't know everything. it appears to be a vacant property, it's completely covered, almost like a jungle cover but with weeds. >> we're happy, we're happy. everybody is happy. everybody is happy. >> police stormed the house but found no one inside. they said erica had been there alone almost the entire time and it appears the kidnappers had left her for dead. the two men who had been wanted for questioning in the case will be charged with kidnapping. erica has identified one of her abductors. police believe money was the motive. erica's grandmother may have received an insurance payment earlier this year and police are investigating whether that could have prompted the $165, $165, $165,000 ransom demand. and coming up, a 17-year- old -- in 1996, vallejo police had a mystery on their hand. responding to a house fire authorities found a 17-year-old girl inside shot and killed. and her 3 -week-old baby was missing. ktvu's jim vargas brought us this story on the day after it happened back in may of 1996. >> reporter: the fire wasn't very big confined to part of the living room in this home. but just after firefighters arrived on the scene they found the body of 17-year-old daphney boyant shot and killed. her 3 -week-old baby boy missing. >> the big thing right now is trying to find the child. >> reporter: daphney lived with her grandmother who says she was fine that morning. >> she was on the couch with the baby when i left. >> reporter: two young girls arrived at the home just as she was leaving. many homes had dropped by to see the baby lately. police say they spoke with the two girls and they are not suspects, neither is the father. daphney was described as an independent girl who had been in home study and was excited to return to school. >> i want to circulate so we can find the baby. >> reporter: officers have been going house to house. they've been circulating the baby's picture. but so far no luck. >> two days later the fbi joined the investigation in the search for the missing baby. diane wire filed this report. >> fbi agents wore protective gear as they methodically searched the home where daphney died last friday. that four-week-old baby devon williams is still missing and the family is worried. >> anybody, anybody with a heart can we just have the baby please. >> reporter: friends and family members have left teddy bears and flowers for the baby and for his teenage mother creating a makeshift memorial in front of the home. police have interviewed the baby's father 22-year-old williams a local rap artist. >> we talked to him, he's distraught. it's his child that's missing. any time we want to find him we talk to him. >> is he a suspect? >> i think everybody is a suspect right now. >> reporter: williams reportedly signed a contract with a major recording studio last week and police say some of the victims' friend have suggested the killer may have been jealous of williams newfound success or jealous of his relationship with boydin. >> we heard of rumors of jealousy of the relationship. we've heard the motive or a mother losing her child and going to find another. but as a real motive, we don't. we don't have one. >> reporter: they set up a command center at the northern vallejo police department just four blocks from the fire. they also want to identify two girls who were seen visiting the house moments before the fire started. police say the two girls they have talked to deny being there. >> let me get your tummy. this is a family video of daphney boyden taken a few months ago. her family says that she was a great child who did well in school. and she was in a home study during her pregnancy. >> i want to ask people to give a prayer. >> you can turn a negative into a positive. i think the positive would be that this child would be all right. the surprising turn of events six years later that revealed what happened to baby williams and solved the murder of his mother. and a bit later, the strange tale of three young men from the bay area who kidnapped a school bus full of children and buried them in the ground alive. in 1996, vallejo police found a girl's body in a home that had been set on fire. they began a search for the girl's killer but also a search for her 4 -day-old son. >> reporter: vallejo police say an anonymous tip led them to dejon williams in the place that police had least expected, in vallejo itself. >> latasha brown was determined she had not had a child and based on that, we did some more investigation, wrote some search warrants and ultimately arrested her and arrested her mother dolores brown for concealing the child. >> reporter: six years ago, daphney was 16 years old when she learned she was pregnant with a son she would name devon. the father was williams, a rapper with a lucrative deal. a theory was that the two girls were upset with the relationship. latasha brown and her mother raised him as their own for six years. >> how could she have done this? but i'm happy, i'm happy he's going to be back with his family. >> reporter: leshon had been enrolled in a vallejo school with a fake birth certificate. the family has not been allowed to see him yet but this is a rendering of what he might have looked like older. >> we finally got our wish. >> reporter: now his family begins the difficult reunification process with a boy that doesn't know him. his father laton williams is currently serving time in prison in what may be an extraordinary act of compassion. lejon's family says they may end up spending the kidding victim spend time with the child to help the child's transition. dolores and latasha brown are in jail. as for lejon he's in protective custody. >> police would also arrest a third woman in the case, latasha brown's cousin. latasha brown was sentenced to 14 years in prison. williams was sentenced to 14 years in prison. kidnapped and buried alive. how a bus load of students survived and what they remember years later. in 1976 the bay area became the center of the most notorious crimes. three young men abducted a bus full of children and drove them to a spot where they buried them and the bus driver alive. all would survive and the three were captured andsomeness -- capture and sentenced to life in prison. in 1996, kevin wing recounted the event of kidnapping and talked to some of the victims about what they remembered 20 years later. july 15, 1967, a bus load of school children on their way to school is high jacked. the bus driver was driving down a dusty road. >> when i turned on the road, there was a car. when i opened the door, a man jumps out with a mask and two guns. >> reporter: the men force them to the back of the bus. he then saw two other men waiting with vans. cindy vanhite was seven, she recalls her fear. >> yeah people stopping you in the middle of road with a van. they put us in a couple of vans. and it seemed like we drove forever. they took us all off the bus and put us in vans. >> were you able to see where you were going? >> no, it was totally enclosed. >> so no windows. >> no windows. >> but they didn't tell you or anything? >> no it was just totally dark in the van. >> reporter: they road 11 hours before the abductors finally stopped. >> here just outside livermore is the remote location where the kidnappers brought their victims 20 years ago. today this is what's left of a quarry long abandoned. you can still see the trees that park the spot. it is there where the 26 school children and the bus driver was buried alive. the vans were brought into a quarry. >> we all had to climb down on a hole with a ladder. they took our names down, and there was a towel they took me from. they would not let us take anything with us. >> reporter: the older boys moved the site and batteries, after 17 hours under ground they got out and just in time. they were hours from suffocating. >> they were just watching them. you know of course for them not knowing what is on the other end of that once they got through. i mean it was boards and a lot of dirt and just good pretty sized batteries on top of the lid. so once they got it completely through and they could see, then it was a little relief. >> a security guard at the quarry spotted the kids and called alameda sheriff department and the fbi. hours later the victims spoke with the press. >> you say they would give you this funny look. what did that make you feel? >> scared. >> really, are you afraid of those men do you think? >> no. >> do you think that any of your friends or you have been hurt for a long time because of it? >> no, not really. >> they got to this one spot, he run through some brush and stuff, you could hear it scratching the pickup and stuff. the van. they left the cooler for a while then he turned it off. we thought we were going to suffocate in there for a while. >> reporter: charles bates was the fbi agent in charge of the van. he recalls it being intolerably hot in the van. >> it was hot, it smelled like a toilet. i don't think a person could stay in there for 15 minutes. >> reporter: the guard would provide police with logbooks, a crucial clue. >> we went back through our logs and found the log entries of the moving van and that's when we turned that over to the sheriff's. >> within days, sketches of three bay area men appeared everywhere. joe snelindell was picked up by his parents home. and fred woods 24 was arrested near the canadian border. william gaggen was richard snelinell's attorney. >> every one of them was ignorant what the consequences would be. each of them gave what possibly could have gone wrong with this whole plan. the danger to the children. they really hasn't thought that through. >> reporter: the men came from well to do families and were planning to demand a ransom. each is serving 27 conquering life sentences. two of them come up for parol. >> i think richard will be paroled sometime in the next 10 years. james, i don't know. but they'll be well in the middle age or old age when it happens. >> ray is now retired, he even bought the famous bus as a somber momento but keeps it hidden in a barn. >> it's just always there in your mind. to this day is if i'm driving at night or if i'm -- i don't like to be by myself at night. it's just always in the back of your mind. is that car going to stop me? that's it for this week's second look. i'm mike mibach. thank you for watching.