Story highlights
NEW: Hannah's great-uncle to DiMaggio family: 'Shut up'
Anderson family says they didn't know DiMaggio until after Hannah was conceived
DiMaggio family wants to know if he fathered Hannah, Ethan
DiMaggio named Hannah's grandmother as his life insurance beneficiary
“In the beginning I was a victim, but now knowing everyone out there is helping me, I consider myself a survivor instead,” she told NBC News. “My mom raised me to be strong.”
The reason? They want to know if he was Hannah and 8-year-old Ethan’s biological father, a family spokesman said.
“We are going to be requesting from the Anderson family that we try to get DNA samples from Hannah. And if they have anything left from Ethan, that we get a DNA sample,” DiMaggio’s family spokesman, Andrew Spanswick, told CNN affiliate KGTV. “There has been a lot of rumors that Jim might be the father of either or both children.”
Reached by CNN, Spanswick said DiMaggio’s sister, Lora, is making the request, but would not elaborate further.
A representative for the Anderson family shot down the theory.
“Brett and Tina Anderson did not meet Mr. DiMaggio until the sixth month of Tina’s pregnancy with Hannah. Brett Anderson’s DNA was used to identify the body of his dead son Ethan Anderson,” the family statement said.
And David Braun, Tina Anderson’s uncle, reacted angrily to the idea.
“I would tell them to shut up with their accusations and their implications up until after the funeral, until after my precious Tina and precious Ethan are buried – the family members that your family murdered,” Braun said. “That’s what I would tell them.”
A complex case
There was a time when the Hannah Anderson abduction case seemed clear-cut.
DiMaggio, a close Anderson family friend, allegedly kills Hannah’s mother and brother, burns his house down, kidnaps Hannah and goes on the run. After a frantic week-long manhunt, he is spotted in the Idaho wilderness and shot dead by an FBI agent. Hannah is safe and reunited with her father.
That was on August 10.
With each passing day, the case has taken on added complexity.
DiMaggio, 40, left a life insurance policy that named Hannah and Ethan’s grandmother, Bernice Anderson, as the beneficiary.
Stacy Hess, the spokeswoman, did not know the dollar amount but other media outlets put it at around $110,000.
The insurance policy was one of the reasons DiMaggio’s family sought a DNA test.
“It states specifically that he didn’t want to give it to either parent cause he didn’t trust them,” Spanswick said, referring to Hannah’s parents.
The Anderson children called DiMaggio “Uncle Jim.”
Anderson’s letters found at kidnap suspect’s home
Hannah spotted with captor
Then there is this.
Hannah was seen with DiMaggio in his car about 20 hours before he allegedly set fire to his house, police said.
The two were in his blue Nissan Versa just after midnight August 4, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said. They were spotted at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint, according to Jan Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
Caldwell did not say what the two were doing together or whether Hannah was with DiMaggio voluntarily.
CNN was unable to get an Anderson family response to this revelation.
Search warrant raises eyebrows
Some of Hannah’s actions have raised eyebrows in some quarters.
Phone records indicate the two “called each other approximately 13 times” shortly before both their phones were turned off on August 4, a search warrant revealed.
The same document said phone records indicate the two “called each other approximately 13 times” shortly before both their phones were turned off around 4 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) on August 4.
That was around the time that Hannah was picked up from cheerleading practice at Sweetwater High School, the warrant says, while noting it wasn’t known who picked her up.
The same document says that a fire was reported later that night at DiMaggio’s two-story log cabin and a detached garage in Boulevard, California.
After battling the fire, authorities found the bodies of Hannah’s mother and brother.
An affidavit claimed that both had been “tortured and killed” by DiMaggio, who then set his home and garage ablaze.
Affidavits: Mother, brother ‘tortured and killed’
A fire captain found Christina Anderson face down in the garage, covered with a tarp, and with a crowbar and what appeared to be blood next to her head.
The manhunt
An Amber Alert was issued the next day.
The ordeal ended about 1,000 miles from where it started, on August 10, when an FBI tactical agent shot and killed DiMaggio in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, about 15 miles outside Cascade, Idaho.
As to Hannah, she was physically unharmed and soon returned to her family in Southern California.
The teenager hasn’t spoken publicly or with reporters since the ordeal. But she did field anonymous questions on the website ask.fm, according to Alan MacNabb, whose son is one of Hannah’s closest friends.
In those comments, she said DiMaggio had apparently set some kind of a timing device to start the blaze at his home. She also said she did not want to go with her “dad’s best friend” and that, had she tried to escape from him, “He would have killed me.”
Search finds
Friend: Hannah speaks about kidnapping on social media
San Diego County deputies searching DiMaggio’s charred home found a handwritten note, handcuff box, camping equipment, a DNA swab kit, two used condoms and letters from Hannah, according to an affidavit.
Contents of the letters and the handwritten note were not revealed in the affidavit.
CNN’s Traci Tamura contributed to this report.