Erica Pratt
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Erica Pratt was a young girl who was abducted on July 22, 2002 while walking down a sidewalk in Southwest Philadelphia. She was held captive for a night and a day in the basement of an empty house, her hands and feet bound with duct tape. Despite being only seven years old, the child chewed through the duct tape, kicked open a basement door and made her way to a window where she screamed until someone heard her and came to her rescue.
[edit] Motive
It was later found that her kidnappers, James Burns and Edward Johnson, had falsely believed a neighborhood rumor that Erica's family had received $150,000 as part of a life insurance payment after her uncle was shot and killed one month before. The two men were arrested three days after the kidnapping took place.
[edit] Public Reaction
Philadelphia Police Inspector William Colarulo commented on the kidnapping, stating: "I have twenty-one years in the Police Department, and I have never seen this kind of heroic act of bravery committed by a seven-year-old."
Despite Erica being such a young child who escaped a possible deadly situation through her own bravery and ingenuity, her story received very little media attention compared to other top stories of child abduction around the same time, particularly Elizabeth Smart's case. Internet boards, as well as comedians and entertainers such as Maddox and Dave Chapelle, and even Time Magazine often compared Erica Pratt to Elizabeth Smart, both in suggesting how Elizabeth might have escaped her captors, and in citing how the media treated the two stories differently, particularly the coverage, book and movie deals and talk show invitations that Elizabeth Smart and her family received.
