Mom Of Teenager Who Was Abducted And Missing For 29 Days: ‘It’s The Worst Feeling In The World’
Authorities had been searching for 15-year-old Jasmine Block since the night she went missing on August 8, 2017. Twenty-nine days after vanishing from her home in rural Northern Minnesota, law enforcement arrived at Jasmine’s family home with news of the teenager’s fate.
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“The detectives came. Mom went outside to see what they were here for and we expected the worst of it,” says Jasmine’s older sister, Paige, adding, “We didn’t think that she was alive.”
Jasmine escaped her kidnappers by first running, then swimming across a lake where she sought help from a local farmer. She describes the reunion with her mother and sisters as being happy.
WATCH: ‘I Just Had Faith In Myself,’ Says Teen Who Escaped Her Kidnappers
“I thought that I was never going to be able to see them again,” says the teen.
“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” says Jasmine’s mother, Sarah, of her daughter’s abduction. “You’re just on standstill. Your life has paused.”
Jasmine’s ordeal included being drugged, sexually assaulted and nearly killed by Thomas Barker, a family acquaintance, and his accomplices, Steven Powers and Joshua Holby.
Barker was sentenced to 25 years in prison for kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct in the first-degree. Powers received a sentence of eight-and-a-half years behind bars after pleading guilty to criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping. Holby got seven years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of kidnapping.
What does Sarah say her reaction was when she learned her daughter had been taken by someone they knew?
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