Hannah Anderson Responds Online to Questions About Her Ordeal

Updated August 14 at 9 a.m.

Someone who reports being the Lakeside teenager who was kidnapped and taken to Idaho by a family friend believed to have killed her mother and 8-year-old brother says she'll never forgive herself for not trying harder to save them and that her captor got exactly what he deserved when he was shot to death by an FBI agent.

Hannah Anderson, 16, apparently broke her silence on a social media website popular with teens, writing in an hours-long question-answer session that the man tricked her family into visiting his home earlier this month.

Her family has yet to confirm the authenticity of the postings. San Diego County Sheriff's Department public information officer Jan Caldwell said the department was aware of Hannah's online posts, but "we won't be making any comments" about them.

Anderson was reunited with her father on Sunday after search crews spotted her and her kidnapper, 40-year-old James Lee DiMaggio of Boulevard, a longtime friend of her family, in an Idaho wilderness area Saturday afternoon and fatally shot him.

On the ask.fm website, "Hannah" fielded questions from anonymous members from across the country, and said she, her mother and brother were essentially duped by DiMaggio to visit him.

"He told us he was losing his house because of money issues so we went up there one last time to support him, and to have fun riding go karts up there but he tricked us," she wrote.

She said on the site that DiMaggio tied up her 8-year-old brother Ethan and 44-year-old mother Christina Anderson in the garage before driving away with her to Idaho.

Hannah confirmed she did not know that her brother and mother had died until after she was rescued and said DiMaggio rigged his house to catch fire after he and she left. Authorities responded to the fire and discovered the bodies Aug. 4.

Asked why she thought DiMaggio did what he did, she responded, "Because he's a psycho." Hannah also wrote that she hopes the dead murder and kidnapping suspect "burns in hell."

When asked what she would like to say to her mother and brother, Hannah responded, "That I'm sorry it ended like that. I wish I could go back in time and risk my life to try and save theirs. I will never forgive myself for not trying harder to save them."

Investigators were led to Idaho after DiMaggio and Hannah were spotted in the wilderness by a group of horseback riders. Hannah wrote on the website that she tried to be calm when they encountered the group.

"I didn't want them to get hurt. I was scared that he would kill them," she wrote.

She said she suffered only a twisted knee in the ordeal and that she didn't try to run away because "he would have killed me."

Asked if DiMaggio had a crush on her, Hannah wrote, "Yes he did. He said it was more of a family crush like he had feelings as in he wanted nothing bad to happen to me."

She noted, however, that DiMaggio "had a gun and threatened to kill me and anyone who tried to help."

In a bizarre twist, DiMaggio died exactly 15 years after his father committed suicide. DiMaggio's father had a history of substance abuse and criminal offenses. In 1988, the elder DiMaggio, also named James, kidnapped an ex-girlfriend's then 16-year-old daughter. The elder DiMaggio's victim, now an adult, recently told a local TV station that her attacker professed his love for her and said he was taking her to give her a good life.

– City News Service