Girl Meets Rescuers, Years Later

More than 20 years ago, 6-year-old kidnap victim Jillian Searles was rescued, after a brutal assault at the hands of a child molester.

But,

It is, Moriarty observes, "one of faith and incredible resilience. Not only did she refuse to let that horrific experience ruin the rest of her life, she transformed the lives of the men who saved her."

And recently, Searles finally had a reunion with her rescuers, as cameras from The Early Show took it all in.

Searles was snatched off a sidewalk in Barstow, Calif., in September 1983 while walking from school to a baby sitter's house.

And, says Moriarty, those images are still painfully clear. She can still recall the face of the man who drove her to a remote stretch of desert, molested her, chained her to a wooden beam, and left her to die.

"How do you think he most hurt you?" Moriarty asked Searles.

"He took my innocence," Searles said, in tears. "Those are things a 6-year-old shouldn't know about."

But her most vivid memory is that of two airborne sheriff's deputies who, acting on a hunch, found her on a lonely hillside late that night. Cold. Frightened. But alive.

Despite her physical and emotional trauma, the little girl tried to describe her kidnapper to police.

Barstow Detective Leo Griego got the case.

"She described a man approximately 21-25 years of age, Caucasian, white, missing a tooth on his upper jaw," he tells Moriarty.

Based on Searles' description, a composite sketch was broadcast. But it failed to turn up any suspects.

Griego followed up on other leads, including a similar incident with a local man, with no luck.

Now close to retirement age, he's still chasing the man who took Searles: "On something like this, we don't forget what happened. It may take a lot of years, but we don't forget, and I still think that there's a good possibility of identifying the individual who abducted her and sexually molested her.""I just wish," Searles said to Moriarty, tearfully, "that I had been able to tell them more. Or do more, so that he would have been caught. And I know that they tried their hardest, and I know they still try, and they haven't forgotten about it to this day.

"But it makes me feel sad to know that somebody else could have gone through that, because I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that."

The kidnapping, Moriarty says, changed Searles' life forever. But she was determined not to let the memories of that day consume her. Searles grew into a charming and beautiful woman and, late last month, took her place on a New York City stage, graduating from law school, with honors.

Searles now lives and practices law in New York City but, says Moriarty, she's never been far from the minds, or hearts, of the men who rescued her.

One of them is Lt. Jim Singley of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Dept., who's since retired. He flew the helicopter that rescued Searles. He now says, "I flew in Vietnam. I was decorated for rescuing other pilots who were shot down and stuff. But the highlight of my life was finding this little girl out there."

What does Searles think of her rescuers, these many years later?

"I'm just incredibly thankful," she said. "They're the reason I'm here today."

But in all these years, she never had the chance to thank them all, face-to-face.

So, CBS News arranged a meeting among Searles, Singley, Griego, and Deputy Henry Valencia of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Dept., who was in the rescue chopper with Singley.

"She's not 5 years old anymore!" exclaimed Singley.

Searles warmly embraced all three, one at a time.

For Searles, Moriarty notes, many of the terrible feelings of that long-ago day have faded. And what remains, is gratitude.

"Thank you so much," she told them. "You have no idea. I've had a really good life. And I'm very thankful. …I just have to hug you guys again!"

Searles says she eventually hopes to become a prosecutor.

Moriarty points out that many pedophiles don't outgrow their desires, and Searles' abductor, who is still on the loose, would presumably be in his 40s today, and police hope showing the composite sketch jogs someone's memory, to help rekindle the investigation.