For seven years, everyone believed he had disappeared forever.

When he reappears, he didn't come back alone.

In the early hours of March 2, 1980, a boy entered a police station in Ukiah, California, holding a five-year-old boy.

The agents immediately recognized the smallest.

It was Timothy White, the baby she's been talking about for days in all the news.

Then they asked the name of the boy who brought him there.

The answer left the room silently.

His name was Steven Stayner.

He was the missing child seven years ago.

His story began on December 4, 1972. He was only seven years old when a stranger approached him as he returned from school, convincing him to follow him under the pretext of a fundraiser for a religious organization.

What seemed like a few minutes encounter turned into the beginning of a nightmare.

The man, Kenneth Parnell, took him away and made him believe his parents didn't want him anymore.

For a seven-year-old child it was a difficult lie to question.

Steven grew away from home with another identity, attended school and tried to adapt to a reality he had not chosen.

Meanwhile, his family never stopped looking for him.

Years passed.

With time Steven understood the truth and began to realize that his kidnapper was also a danger to other children.

When Parnell tried to approach new minors, he tried to hinder him without attracting suspicion.

Then came February 1980.

The next victim was Timothy White, who was only five years old.

Seeing that baby crying and asking to return to his family brought Steven back in time.

She relishes herself.

He knew he couldn't let another life be broken as it had happened to his own.

He waited for the right time.

On the night between 1 and 2 March he woke Timothy, took him with him and left the house.

A driver offered them a ride to the police station.

It was there that, after seven years of absence, Steven regained freedom.

But he also saved another child's.

Within a few hours Kenneth Parnell was arrested.

Two families were finally able to embrace their children.

For Steven, however, the return did not erase everything he had lived.

He had to rebuild a broken life too early, find lost ties and learn to live with a childhood that no one could return to him.

In the following years he married, became the father of two children and tried to build a future.

The future ended on September 16, 1989, when he died in a motorcycle accident.

He was only twenty-four.

Timothy White, the child who had helped save, chose instead to dedicate his life to the service of others by entering law enforcement.

Steven Stayner's story is remembered especially for the abduction he suffered.

Yet his most extraordinary gesture came when he would have had all the reasons to think only of himself.

When he finally saw a possibility of freedom, he decided that he would not leave that nightmare alone.

Before saving his life, he also wanted to save that of a child who, like him years before, was just waiting to be able to go home.
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