Alicia Kozakiewicz

Kozakiewicz's kidnapper, Scott William Tyree, was born in 1963 to Erma Tyree.

He graduated from Westmoor High School in 1981, married twice, had a 12-year-old daughter (who was staying with him during winter break and was sent back to her mother on the day Tyree kidnapped Kozakiewicz), and was divorced at the time of the kidnapping.

His first wife, Sarah Tyree, said her husband was "a classic, long-haired computer guy" with an interest in science fiction and computer games.

She said he had no prior brushes with the law.

After her rescue, Kozakiewicz was examined at a hospital and released to the custody of Fairfax County Child Protective Services.

Her parents, Mary and Charles Kozakiewicz, were unable to take a commercial flight to reunite with their daughter due to the heightened media attention.

They were privately flown to Virginia by the FBI on the following day.

In the aftermath, Kozakiewicz developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and significant memory loss.

Much of her life leading up to the abduction is difficult or impossible to recall.

She has used counseling as a treatment method.

Alicia Kozakiewicz (born 1988), also known as Alicia Kozak, is an American television personality, motivational speaker, and Internet safety and missing persons advocate.

Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Alicia Project, an advocacy group designed to raise awareness about online predators, abduction, and child sexual exploitation.

She is also the namesake of "Alicia's Law", which provides a dedicated revenue source for child rescue efforts.

Kozakiewicz has worked with television network Investigation Discovery (ID) to educate the public on, and effect change for, issues such as Internet safety, missing people, human trafficking, and child safety awareness education.

At the age of 13, Kozakiewicz was the first known victim of an Internet luring and child abduction that received widespread media attention.

Her story and message have been chronicled on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, CNN, MSNBC, and the A&E Biography Channel.

She has been the subject of an award-winning PBS Internet safety documentary, Alicia's Message: I'm Here to Save Your Life, as well as the Emmy award-winning Alicia's Story produced by Enough is Enough.

Kozakiewicz has been featured in numerous national and international publications, such as People and Cosmopolitan.

Kozakiewicz has addressed Congress on the issue of Internet safety for children and federal child rescue funding.

Kozakiewicz had corresponded online with someone she thought to be a boy of her own age—actually Scott Tyree, a 38-year-old man who lived in Herndon, Virginia—who approached her in a Yahoo chat room.

Over the course of nearly a year, Tyree groomed the 13-year-old Kozakiewicz.

The Kozakiewicz family computer was located in the family room where Internet activity could be monitored, but Tyree often contacted her at night while the rest of the family was asleep.

On January 1, 2002, New Year's Day, Tyree lured Kozakiewicz into meeting him near her Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, address.

He coerced her into his vehicle and then drove her back to his home in Virginia.

Over the course of four days, she was held captive, shackled, raped, and tortured in Tyree's basement dungeon.

Tyree filmed the abuse and broadcast it online, live via streaming video for others to witness.

A viewer in Florida recognized Kozakiewicz from news stories and a missing persons flyer from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

He contacted the FBI, anonymously and via a payphone because he feared being charged as an accessory to the crime.

The FBI, using the Yahoo username they had learned from the anonymous tip, found Tyree's IP address and hence his street address, at a townhouse in Herndon.

When FBI agents stormed the house on January 4, 2002, Kozakiewicz feared that they were men Tyree had sent to kill her.

At 4:10 pm on January 4, 2002, agents freed Kozakiewicz.

Tyree was arrested half an hour later at his workplace in Herndon.

As an adult she said that in 2002 people found it impossible to understand how this had happened and how she had been groomed; they mostly blamed the victim, although some people were supportive.

In September 2003, Tyree was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months in federal prison.

He was released in February 2019 from the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner.

and was assigned to a halfway house in Pittsburgh; protests against the location of his placement eventually involved members of Congress in an unsuccessful effort to pressure the Federal Bureau of Prisons to move him farther away from Kozakiewicz's family.

The controversy became moot in October 2019, when Tyree was returned to prison for an additional two years for violating the terms of his parole by visiting pornographic sites.

He was released from prison once more on September 22, 2021.

One year after her abduction, at the age of 14, Kozakiewicz founded the Alicia Project.

The Alicia Project is an advocacy group that raises awareness and provides education on topics such as Internet safety for children, the prevalence of online child predators, and abductions.