Story highlights
NEW: 16-year-old Hannah Anderson is reunited with her father
"They didn't fit," a horseback rider says of seeing Hannah and her alleged abductor
The teenager is rescued in the Idaho wilderness
An FBI tactical agent shot and killed suspect James DiMaggio
After an agonizing week of waiting, hoping and praying, Brett Anderson reunited with his 16-year-old daughter, Hannah, on Sunday, according to a source close to the situation.
Hannah was rescued in the Idaho wilderness after an FBI agent shot and killed the family friend suspected of killing her mother and brother, burning his own house down and kidnapping the girl.
James DiMaggio’s death and Hannah’s rescue late Saturday afternoon ended a frantic, weeklong manhunt. The girl did not appear to have significant physical injuries, authorities said.
“It’s now healing time,” the girl’s father said in a text message to CNN.
“They didn’t fit”
Hannah went missing after cheerleading practice in San Diego County, California, on August 3.
The next day, the bodies of her mother, Christina Anderson, and 8-year-old brother, Ethan, were found about 45 miles east in DiMaggio’s burned house in Boulevard.
That horror spurred a manhunt, which turned to central Idaho after a telling tip from a horseback rider and the discovery of DiMaggio’s blue Nissan Versa in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, about 15 miles outside Cascade, Idaho.
One of the horseback riders on Sunday described multiple “red flags” that were raised during their brief interaction with the pair, including their brand-new camping equipment and the pajama-like bottoms Hannah was wearing.
Mark John recalled the interaction as “just like a square peg going into a round hole. They didn’t fit.”
Another rider, Mike Young, said it looked like Hannah “had a scared look on her face,” adding about DiMaggio: “I just had a gut feeling about him.”
Unaware of the Amber Alert, however, the horseback riders continued on, and only after seeing a news report on the pair upon returning home did the group put the puzzle pieces together.
“When I seen that picture on the screen, I told my wife, I said, ‘That is the girl that was up on that mountain,’” John recalled.
By Saturday morning, there were more than 250 law enforcement agents on site scouring 300 square miles of rough terrain.
By late Saturday afternoon, they’d accomplished their first mission: finding DiMaggio and his alleged captive.
Hostage rescue teams had to hike more than two hours to get to the scene, local sheriffs’ departments said.
They moved in carefully so they wouldn’t alert DiMaggio that they were coming.
“Once the teams set up, they waited until DiMaggio and Hannah separated and moved in,” the Valley and Ada county sheriffs’ offices said.
Authorities ushered Hannah to an area where a helicopter could whisk her away.
However the scene unfolded, it ended with an FBI tactical agent fatally shooting the suspected murderer and kidnapper.
“Obviously we would have liked for Mr. DiMaggio to surrender and face justice in the court of law,” Gore said. “But that’s not going to be the case.”
‘Hannah is safe’
Hannah didn’t appear to have significant physical injuries,but was immediately taken to a hospital, the sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
“Hannah is safe, and that was our first priority from the very beginning,” Valley County, Idaho, Sheriff Patti Bolen said.
In his text to CNN, Brett Anderson expressed a range of emotions upon hearing of his daughter’s rescue soon after his wife and son’s death.
“I am nervous excited saddened 4 my wife and son and worried what my daughter has been through,” he wrote.
Father of missing teen pleads for daughter’s release
Witness: DiMaggio had crush
A friend of Hannah Anderson detailed the relationship she observed between DiMaggio and the teen.
Marissa Chavez told CNN that she was in a car with Hannah and DiMaggio, 40, a few months ago when he told Hannah he had a crush on her.
He followed it up by saying if he was her age, he would date Hannah, Chavez said.
Hannah was unnerved by the comments, but did not tell her mother because she did not want to ruin the close relationship that her parents had with DiMaggio, Chavez said.
But Hannah did not want to be alone with DiMaggio after that, Chavez said.
“I don’t think she would have gone willingly with him at all,” she said.
In an earlier episode, Chavez recalled a trip that DiMaggio and Hannah took to Hollywood. The trip was supposed to be for one week, but Hannah told Chavez that they came back after two days because DiMaggio was upset that she wasn’t paying enough attention to him.
Saga starts in California, ends in Idaho
The suspect’s car was found after a man on horseback reported he had a brief conversation with two campers in the Idaho wilderness on Wednesday.
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DiMaggio’s car was found unoccupied Friday – hidden by brush and its license plate removed – spurring authorities to intensify their search in that area even further.
Ultimately, DiMaggio was spotted and killed not far from where he left his car, according to Dearden.
Father of missing teen pleads for daughter’s release
“I don’t think she would have gone willingly with him at all,” she said.
Grief over the deaths of Hannah’s mother and brother gave way to euphoria after the teen was found alive.
“We’re very excited,” Sara Britt, Hannah and Ethan’s grandmother, said Sunday. “Just ecstatic. Jubilation. We couldn’t ask for anything more. This is the outcome we wanted.”
But the outcome was also bittersweet for Britt and her husband, Ralph, who lost their daughter Christina and grandson Ethan in the ordeal.
Asked whether she had any sense that DiMaggio might have been capable of the alleged crimes, Sara Britt said never.
“Even the way it turned out – I mean he loved little E, and he loved my daughter, and for him to do such a horrific act, it’s just not fathomable. I can’t understand it because he loved them too,” she said.
Ralph Britt said he wants Christina to be remembered “as a daughter and a mother of two great kids. That’s it.”
CNN’s Gregg Canes, Miguel Marquez, AnneClaire Stapleton, Mariano Castillo and Alicia Eakin contributed to this report.