I WAS SNATCHED BY A STRANGER'

As a toddler, Kathy was kidnapped and then miraculously set free

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It was 12 June 1968 and two-year-old Kathy Wrethman sat on the front steps, swinging her legs and eating a lolly. She and her mum Mary had just dropped big brother Angus off at school and back home, Kathy was in the front yard while her mum nipped inside quickly. Kathy's baby sister Maria snoozed next to her in the pram.

Just three weeks before, the Wrethmans had arrived in Sydney from the UK.

"Dad had left the military and wanted to make a new life for us," Kathy, now 56, tells Woman's Day. "He had told Mum that Australia was the Lucky Country."

TAKEN FROM HOME

But that day was anything but lucky for the Wrethman family because when Mary came back outside, her toddler had vanished.

"Mum was only gone two minutes, but when she couldn't see me, she started to panic," says Kathy.

The police and Kathy's dad John were called, and a full-scale search was launched.

"Witnesses had seen me walking hand in hand with a red-haired man," tells Kathy. "I was crying and the man told someone I'd fallen off a slide.

"It must have been terrifying for Mum. When it got dark on the first night, she had to be sedated. She was blaming herself for leaving me."