Because we are a society:
Horseback riders who encountered a missing California teen and her abductor said Sunday that “red flags” went up for them because the pair seemed out of place in the rugged Idaho back country, refusing to give many details on where they were heading or what they were doing.
At a news conference in Boise, the four riders – two men and two women – said they came across 16-year-old Hannah Anderson and 40-year-old James Lee DiMaggio on Wednesday morning.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in the backcountry and usually you don’t run into somebody wearing pajamas,” Mike Young, a 62-year-old resident from Sweet, said about Anderson’s attire.
Young said he had a “gut feeling that they didn’t belong” in the area and when trying to talk to Anderson, she “kind of had a scared look on her face” and kept trying to look away.
“They didn’t fit,” said 71-year-old Mike John, who is a former sheriff’s deputy from Gem County. “He might have been an outdoorsman in California but he was not an outdoorsman in Idaho … Red flags kind of went up.”
John described how he saw DiMaggio sitting on the side of a trail petting a gray cat. He feared that the cat would attract wolves to the area.
“All of their gear [also] looked like it was brand new — that was another flag that this wasn’t normal or natural,” John added.
Because we know where we live and who lives among us.