This story sounds like a movie case. Kayla Unbehaun, now 15, was a nine-year-old girl when she was abducted in July 2017 in North Carolina, about 965 miles from her father’s home in Illinois. The case was deemed a parental kidnapping carried out by her mother, who had visitation rights but not full custody of her daughter, which she had lost.
When little Kayla went missing, her mother, Heather Unbehaun, said they were going camping but never returned. When the father, Ryan Iserka, went to pick up the girl the next day in South Elgin, Chicago, he was unable to find her. From that moment on, the family embarked on a search that they have not stopped in all these years. To try to find his daughter, the father made all kinds of campaigns on social networks, and on July 28, 2017, an arrest warrant for kidnapping was issued against Unbehaun.
Thus, years and years went by without Kayla’s father having any sign of his daughter. The curious thing is that the way the case was solved has caught everyone’s attention. This disappearance appeared in the latest season of Unsolved Mysteries, the Netflix series that chronicles “real cases of baffling disappearances, shocking murders, and paranormal encounters,” as the platform describes it.
The wonderful thing happened when a man who watched the series on Netflix over the weekend recognized Kayla Unbehaun after seeing her in a store in North Carolina. The man, totally convinced that she was the missing girl mentioned in the documentary, called the state police, who immediately went to the scene. After conducting several investigations, it was confirmed that the man was right: it was Kayla.
Thanks to this Netflix series, the teenager was reunited with her father, and her mother was arrested that same day. The dad thanked the citizen participation through his social networks and asked everyone for privacy for these moments in which the family has been reunited after so many years.
“I am thrilled that Kayla is home safe,” the girl’s father, Ryan Iskerka, said in a statement issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We ask for privacy as we get to know each other again and navigate this new beginning.”
Bravo, Netflix! You’re not just good for chilling.
UPDATE: Kayla Unbehaun, who was abducted in 2017 by her non-custodial mother Heather, has been found safe. A store owner in North Carolina recognized Kayla, now 15, from the roll call in Volume 3, Episode 9 "Abducted by a Parent" on @Netflix. Heather was arrested over the… pic.twitter.com/7QswAjUvLU
— Unsolved Mysteries (@Unsolved) May 16, 2023
About Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix
It was in 2020, with emissions divided between July and October, that Unsolved Mysteries returned to the screen with a reboot that resumed the space that was born in the late 80s and continued for three decades. An interesting reboot with the signature of Netflix and Shawn Levy and Josh S. Barry as executive producers, which added changes: it has no driver and offers a case for each chapter.
The series already has three seasons and in them, they talk about real cases of shocking disappearances, chilling murders, and paranormal encounters inspiring the gripping relaunch of this iconic documentary series.
Story written in Spanish by Daniela Bosch in Cultura Colectiva
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