Hannah Anderson Update: Calif. teen rescued after kidnapping attends car wash fundraiser, thanks friends
(CBS) SAN DIEGO -- Hannah Anderson, the California teen who was rescued in the Idaho wilderness after police say she was kidnapped by family friend James DiMaggio, attended a car wash fundraiser Saturday to thank the community for their support, NBC San Diego reports.
PICTURES: Calif. teen rescued in Idaho wilderness
Friends raised nearly $1,000 to help with costs of funeral services for Hannah Anderson's mother Christina, 44, and brother Ethan, 8. Police say DiMaggio kidnapped Hannah, 16, and killed her mother and brother. Their bodies were discovered in the burned-out remains of DiMaggio's Boulevard, Calif. home.
The mother and son are expected to be laid to rest Saturday in Santee, Calif.
Wearing shorts and a brace on her left leg, Hannah Anderson briefly visited the fundraiser, hugging organizer Traci Paulson and thanking supporters.
"It's wonderful that [the community] is out here helping her. She just wanted to come out and thank these people personally," her father, Brett Anderson, told NBC San Diego.
He added, "Every moment is difficult for her."
When asked by an NBC reporter if she had anything to say to the public following her case, Hannah Anderson said only, "Just thank you. Thank you."
Paulson told CBS San Diego affiliate KFMB that her son was Ethan's best friend. She said she organized the event as a way for friends of the family to show their support. "They're hiding it a whole lot and we just wanted them to feel that it's okay to be sad, it's okay to come out here, and to do this, because this is what Ethan would want," Paulson said.
DiMaggio "tortured and killed" the mother and son, San Diego County sheriff's Detective Darren Perata wrote, offering no elaboration, in a warrant released Wednesday. Hannah was rescued days later in the Idaho wilderness, where authorities killed DiMaggio in a shootout.
DiMaggio was extraordinarily close to both children, driving Hannah to gymnastics meets and Ethan to football practice. The warrants say the former telecommunications technician took Hannah on multi-day trips, most recently to Malibu and Hollywood.
Hannah acknowledged being uncomfortable around DiMaggio before the ordeal, saying on a social-media site earlier this week that he once told her that he was drawn to her. "He said it was more like a family crush like he had feelings as in he wanted nothing bad to happen to me," she wrote on the ask.fm site.
Hannah said she didn't tell her parents because DiMaggio was his father's best friend "and I didn't want to ruin anything between them."
She said she didn't learn that her mother and brother had died until authorities told her in the hospital after she was rescued. She said she cried all night.
DiMaggio and the teen exchanged more than a dozen calls in the hours before the slaying. Investigators who searched DiMaggio's home found letters from Hannah, an incendiary device, a handcuff box and "arson wire," according to a warrant posted on the website of CBS San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV. The warrant does not elaborate on the letters or nature of the devices.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has been adamant that Hannah was an unwilling victim from start to finish. "I can't make it any clearer," he said at a news conference Monday.
Complete coverage of Hannah and Ethan Anderson on Crimesider
