Horseback Riders Describe ‘Red Flags’ in Encounter with Missing Teen, Alleged Captor

Originally posted 3:17 p.m. Sunday.

A group of horseback riders in the Idaho backcountry said they "just had a gut feeling" something wasn't right when they came across a pair of casually dressed hikers who seemed out of place last week, a pair that turned out to be missing Lakeside 16-year-old Hannah Anderson and her alleged kidnapper.

"Just kind of a gut feeling, like they didn't belong," said Mike Young, one of the riders, during a press conference that aired live on CNN Sunday, a day after alleged kidnapper Jim DiMaggio was shot and killed by an FBI agent near Morehead Lake in Idaho. 

[See: Hannah Anderson Safe, Suspect Jim DiMaggio Killed in Idaho]

The riders contacted law enforcement after seeing an Amber Alert about the 16-year-old when they returned home from their trip Thursday afternoon. Officials were then able to find Anderson and DiMaggio through an aerial search.

DiMaggio, 40, is thought to have killed Anderson's 44-year-old mother, Christina, and 8-year-old brother, Ethan, before burning down his Boulevard home and taking off with the teen. The mother and son's bodies were found on the property Aug. 4.

[See: Body in Fire Officially ID'd as Ethan Anderson]

On Wednesday, Young, his wife Mary, Mark John and his wife Christa, were out riding horses near Morehead Lake on a fishing trip when they came across DiMaggio and Anderson, who Young said might have been wearing pajama bottoms and tennis shoes.

"She was trying to turn her face away," Young said, describing his initial interaction with the duo along a trail around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. The brief encounter was rife with red flags, he said, from the girl's strange attire to the incongruence between where DiMaggio said they were headed and the direction they were going.

Mary Young said the pair initially was about 10 feet apart from each other, but farther up the trail it looked like DiMaggio had his arm around Anderson's waist.

"She did look frightened, but I thought it was fear of horses," she said.

Later that day, around 5 p.m., the group saw the two again as they were leaving the lake. Mark John, who said he was a former Army ranger and former sheriff, described DiMaggio as a "square peg going into a round hole" without the marks of an Idaho outdoorsman.

John said it was odd that DiMaggio didn't appear to want to talk to the group. He and his wife also said they heard Anderson, who had her feet in the water, say something like "Looks like we're all in trouble now" or "We're in real trouble now" loud enough to be heard as the group left the lake. The couple said they weren't sure what she meant.

Christa John, Mark's wife, said she didn't consider herself a hero for helping authorities find the missing teen.

"There's nothing heroic about it. Nothing. That's just what you do," she said.

Anderson, who was taken to an Idaho hospital apparently in good condition, was reportedly reunited with her father, Brett Anderson, on Sunday in Idaho, according to 10News. 

City News Service also reported that Anderson's grandparents, who live in Santee, told CNN on Sunday that there is a lesson to be learned from this tragic situation.

"What surfaced at the end here was that, you know, just a few weeks ago, Hannah made a comment to her friends that she felt awkward, weird around him because he said he had a crush on her, and she was afraid to tell her parents because Jim was family," Sarah Britt said. "Her friends—the awareness wasn't there for them to tell their parents or another adult so that we could have acted on this earlier."

Also:
‘Most Wonderful Feeling’: Hannah’s Grandmother Elated Over Rescue