a photo of Hannah, taken by her brother, the day before her disappearance
Born May 10th, 1988
Missing May 21st, 1999 - July 6th, 2015

SOLVED

Hannah Emma Hartley is an American kidnapping survivor, author, and child safety activist.

Hannah was born and raised in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, the younger of two children. Hannah's mother, Alessandra, was a Mexican immigrant and Hannah, as well as her older brother, Johnny (born 1986), grew up speaking fluent Spanish. Neighbors described Hannah as a well behaved child and helpful, always teaching younger kids Spanish if she had the time.

On May 21st, 1999, Hannah was walking to school. This was what she usually did, as her home was only a seven minute walk from her school. She and Johnny always walked together, but Johnny had faked sick that day, not wanting to go to school.

"I always regretted that," Johnny said in a 2017 interview. "If I had just went with her, maybe I could have protected her. If I just hadn't faked sick, she would have never been touched by them. The guilt ate away at me for sixteen years, it still kinda does, but at the very least it's nice to know Hannah doesn't blame me."

Hanah never arrived at school and they called her parents, who said that she should be on her way there, but Hannah never arrived and she never arrived home. The police were called around eight am, Alessandra saying her daughter was missing. One man came forward saying he'd seen a gray honda civic force Hannah into the car, but he didn't get the license plate. This lead would unfortunately go cold.

Over the years, several leads were followed by police, but all went cold. In 2013, the Hartley family considered having Hannah declared dead in absentia. Daniel Hartley, the Hartley father, says that when they were discussing this, a now twenty-eight year old slammed his fists on the table and said "We haven't found her body! Therefore, she's alive!" So, she remained a missing person.

Then, on July 6th, 2015, a woman named Annie Edwards was walking through a neighborhood in Shreveport, Louisiana, when she saw a little girl, around seven, playing outside. Annie approached the girl, asking if her parents were inside and the little girl nodded, saying yes. She began talking to the woman, going on and on about how she didn't get to go outside unsupervised very often, how her daddy was probably inside doing things with mommy. The girl went on and on about how daddy didn't feed her for a few days, just talking on and on, and Annie then asked the little girl to come with her to her home. The girl would not name herself, saying daddy wouldn't let her.

The woman called the police, saying she believed she was dealing with a victim of possible child abuse, and the little girl proceeded to drop the bomb that she has two older sisters. The girl kept going on and on about how she and mommy and her sisters lived in a shed most of the time. Police eventually arrived to the residence, where a man, Ryan Mansee, opened the door. He said he knew the girl, that she was his daughter, but he denied her having any sisters and claimed that their mother didn't live with them. He said that he was from an ex-girlfriend and he and his wife, Lauren, were taking care of her. Police asked to be allowed to search the home and the man obliged, letting the police inside, who found nothing in the home, aside from a woman and her two other girls in the kitchen. The woman, and the two girls, were pale and almost a little sickly looking, according to the police report. But they said they were friends of the Mansees who were visiting them. When asked about the little girl, all the woman, who identified herself as Lindy, said was that she was Ryan's daughter. Police then left the home.

The very next day, Annie Edwards herself came by the house to find Lindy sitting on the steps of the home with the oldest of the three girls. Annie approached her and asked if anything, anything wrong at all, was going on in the Mansee's home and Lindy shook her head, said no, asked to be left alone, but Annie would later say in a 2017 interview;

"I could not shake the feeling that she needed help, that she didn't want to be there, that something, anything, not particularly good was happening. And I was right."

After some more talking, the girl, who looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, said she was going to go get Lauren and 'dad', but Lindy grabbed her wrist and instructed her to sit back down. She then said, quote, "My name is Hannah Hartley and I've been kidnapped and I need you to call the police."

Annie nodded and did just that. Police were contacted and she gave them as much information as she knew, Ryan and Lauren were arrested, and Hannah and her three daughters, Ariana, Carmen, and Evelyn were taken to the hospital. Hannah reunited with her family at 5am the next day.

Here's what happened;

On the day Hannah had been walking back from school alone, a car came up next to her; the car contained Ryan Mansee and his wife, Lauren. Ryan had been stalking Hannah since February and said he'd been waiting for an opportunity where she was without Johnny, though he never gave any reason for why he'd been stalking her. He began talking to her, though Hannah didn't respond, until he stopped the car, got out, and forced her into the backseat with Lauren, who then restrained her. The younger girl kicked, and screamed, and tried everything she could. She says she eventually gave up though, due to the exhaustion.

They took Hannah to their home in Shreveport, Louisiana. Ryan first placed her in the basement and he would go down there daily with gifts to gain Hannah's trust. Candy, stuffed animals, etcetera. Two weeks into her captivity, Hannah was assaulted for the first time by Ryan. This would happen hundreds of times over the next sixteen years, and, when she was thirteen, Hannah fell pregnant with her first daughter.

She said she, at the time, didn't even know the correlation between sex and pregnancy, but the Mansees assured her that they knew what they were doing, that it would all be fine, and that Lauren knew how to deliver babies, since she'd worked in a hospital before.

"I contemplated suicide," Hannah said in her 2017 book, Hannah's Story. "I didn't want my child to grow up in this situation. I didn't want to have a bay in the first place. And I didn't know what would happen to me, cause I knew damn well I wouldn't be receiving any medical attention. I thought about suicide several times throughout my pregnancy."

Hannah gave birth three days after turning fourteen on May 14th, 2002, to a baby girl she named Ariana Alice Hartley.

"It's a very bittersweet thing, having a baby in captivity," Hannah said in her 2017 book. "You're not alone anymore, but this is a terrible situation for anyone to grow up in. You don't want them to experience this. You don't want them to be hurt like you've been hurt. But, at the very least, you're not alone anymore. Even if you know they'll suffer."

Hannah says she made Ryan and Lauren promise that she could raise Ariana, that everything pertaining to Ariana's upbringing would be on her. The two agreed. Hannah gave birth to two more daughters over the next few years; Carmen Cassandra Hartley, born June 29th, 2005, and Evelyn Ellie Hartley, born August 1st, 2008. Hannah was allowed to raise all three of them, for the most part, on her own. After her rescue, Hannah kept custody of her children.

In 2017, Hannah released a book, titled Hannah's Story: My Years of Captivity.

As of 2023, all of Hannah's children are alive and well. Ariana wrote her own book, published in 2021, detailing what it was like for her growing up in captivity, titled Little Girl: The Ariana Hartley Story. The following year, in 2022, Carmen Hartley released her own book, titled Little Girl: The Carmen Hartley Story. Evelyn Hartley has discussed possibly releasing her own, but she isn't sure. All three sisters have very active TikTok pages, especially Evelyn. Though Ariana's and Carmen's are more dedicated to talking about kidnapping, child safety, child abuse, etcetera, Evelyn has kept her's largely like that of a typical TikTok page. Evelyn has said before that she just wants to be a normal kid.

"Everyone knows where I came from," Evelyn said in a 2022 interview. "Everyone knows how I spent the first six and half years of my life, everyone knows, it's not a secret to anyone in my school, life, none of it. Most of the time, they don't bring it up unless I do, which is good, that's what I want. But I just want to be as normal as I can."

In 2020, Hannah married Carter Bear, though kept her last name. They have one child together, born in 2021, a daughter named Grace Gabrielle Hartley.

a photo recently posted by Hannah on her Instagram