Turn the other cheek: Victim befriends his kidnapper

From Correspondent Susan Candiotti

CORAL GABLES, Florida (CNN) -- As a young boy, Chris Carrier was kidnapped. His captor shot the nine-year-old and left him for dead. Twenty-two years later, Carrier has befriended the man police say abducted him. (21 sec. /890K QuickTime movie)

The attacker picked up Chris on his way home from school, about a block from his home, after asking the boy to help do a favor for Chris' dad. Chris recalled that his kidnapper "at some point, turned and shot me point blank, hitting me right here in the head and left me unconscious." The boy was left for dead in the Everglades.

About a week later, a hunter discovered the dazed child sitting on a rock. Chris was shot, bruised, covered with cigarette burns. "The odds of me being alive are miraculous," he admits.

Police investigating the crime were able to develop sketches that closely resembled David McAllister, but detectives could never come up with enough evidence to prove that McAllister was their man. "The physical evidence was just not there," said Maj. Charles Scherer of Coral Gables, Florida.

Then, two weeks ago, with the statute of limitations long past, McAllister admitted the kidnapping to police from his nursing home bed. He had done the kidnapping because of a grievance against the Carrier family. "I have no doubts" his confession was genuine, Scherer said.

When Carrier heard the news, he had to meet his attacker. Ever since then, Carrier has visited McAllister regularly, and McAllister says, "I think of Chris as one of the best friends I've ever had."

Carrier graduated from a seminary and served as director of youth ministries at a church. He is soon to open a Christian book store. The kidnapping victim visits the kidnapper every day to read him the Bible.

It is an unlikely friendship. "It says a lot for his character and his beliefs. I don't believe I could do it," said Scherer.

But Carrier maintains that "twenty-two years of remembering, and knowing that I was alive, was probably more haunting to him than it has been for me."

"The past is the past," he said, and an inspiration to others that it is possible to forgive, if not forget.

Related site:

• National Missing Children Center

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