Sartaj Singh
Helmed by Cat Hostick, ‘A Kidnapping in Amish Country’ centers on a mother desperately who seeks the assistance of an old friend when her young daughter is kidnapped. When Lena discovers that her daughter has been abducted, the loving mother faces a dire situation. Her orthodox husband is against outsider interference in their lives, feeling that it will have a corrupting effect. Lena brushes his demands aside and reaches out to an estranged best friend, Skye, who abandoned the Amish community long ago and is now a social media influencer. The Lifetime thriller movie paints a picture of desperation as Lena’s search is hindered by her own community while the kidnapper exploits their vulnerability.
A Kidnapping in Amish Country is Inspired by True Events
While ‘A Kidnapping in Amish Country’ is not based on any one true story, it takes inspiration from real-life stories of kidnapping and exploitation centering on the Amish community. Penned by Taylor Warren Goff, the film is one among many of Lifetime’s movies that revolve around Amish characters and crime. ‘Amish Abduction’ is another Lifetime movie that follows themes similar to ‘A Kidnapping in Amish Country.’ The movie introduces Annie, an Amish woman whose husband leaves their community behind but returns to take custody of their son, even if it involves coercion. A true crime case that comes closest to resembling the plotline of ‘A Kidnapping in Amish Country’ is that of two young Amish girls being kidnapped by a couple in 2014.
A Kidnapping in Amish Country: Similarities to the Stephen Howells and Nicole Vaisey Case
In the town of Oswegatchie in New York, two young Amish sisters were kidnapped by Stephen M. Howells II and his girlfriend, Nicole Vaisey. The girls, 6 and 12 years old, had been manning their family’s vegetable stand while their parents were in the barn for the evening’s milking. A white sedan stopped at the stand, and the couple driving it lured the sisters closer to the vehicle using a puppy. They asked the girls if they wanted to pet it, but pushed them into the car and drove to their home. The sisters were handcuffed together, shackled to a bed, and sexually abused. They had been held captive for around twenty-four hours when the couple decided that they would release them, given the extensive media coverage and police search of the missing children. They had intended to make them their sex slaves but had not completed the construction of their house’s soundproof prison cell and were afraid that neighbors would hear their screaming.
Howells and Vaisey drove 12 miles from their home and dropped the girls off in an isolated location near Richville, New York. Since the Amish community did not allow photographs, the police had little information about their likeness to distribute for their search. They looked for an artist who spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect used by the Amish, and had him draw a visual sketch of the older sister. The family did not want to release the sketch of the younger one. The Amish community held a prayer and vigil, and in the meanwhile, the girls knocked at the door of a Richville resident and asked for help. The police were contacted, and they were brought home. Howells and Vaisey initially pled not guilty but eventually confessed to the crime.
Howells was a registered nurse at Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg and had used sedatives available at the clinic for his twisted ends. He also confessed to sexually exploiting four underage girls in addition to the Amish girls. He and Vaisey shared an alleged master-slave relationship of the 25-year-old woman being under the 39-year-old’s control. In 2015, Stephen Howells was sentenced to 580 years in prison, and Nicole Vaisey got 300 years, and they received another life sentence each in the following year. ‘A Kidnapping in Amish Country’ conveys the emotional and social challenges unique to insular Amish communities when dealing with crime, particularly abductions. The reluctance to involve outsiders and technology, often due to cultural and religious convictions, has been documented to delay critical intervention in crises.
Read More: Don’t Scream It’s Me: Is the Lifetime Movie Based on a True Story?
