On 30th anniversary of Polly Klaas kidnap and murder, her father to phase out foundation

Families of abducted and missing children -- including Sierra LaMar -- gathered Sunday in Sausalito and paid tribute to Klaas for his work supporting them through tragedy.

SAUSALITO – For three decades, Marc Klaas has lived with the trauma of his daughter Polly’s kidnapping and murder, and through years of child advocacy, carried the burden of scores of families whose children vanished, too.

On Sunday, the 30th anniversary of Polly’s abduction from her bedroom during a slumber party at her Petaluma home, Klaas said he is phasing out the foundation that backed crime legislation and helped 1,500 families across the country search for their missing children.

The work has helped him heal, he said. But he’s 74 years old now, and it’s taken its toll.

“Dealing with your own deceased child is one thing, but then dealing with other people’s loss repeatedly over and over and over and over and over again, it just becomes a little overwhelming sometimes,” Klaas said in an interview from the living room of his Sausalito townhome. “I don’t want to die carrying other people’s burdens. I really don’t.”

On Sunday afternoon, at an event meant to remember Polly and highlight the work of KlaasKids Foundation, some of those families he helped most paid tribute to him.

The family of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who disappeared from a Morgan Hill school bus stop in 2012, was there. When Sierra first disappeared, Klaas brought them a dinner of a roast chicken and potato salad, organized a search and attended court hearings when her killer was convicted.

“He’s like a rock with our family and helped us sustain our emotions from spiraling,” said Sierra’s mother, Marlene LaMar, as she stood overlooking the bay from a Sausalito hotel. “Even though we never found her remains, knowing that everything possible that could be done was done, that gives me peace.”

Midsi Sanchez was 8 when Curtis Dean Anderson abducted her on her way home from school in Vallejo. Three days later, she grabbed Anderson’s keys when he momentarily left the car, unlocked her ankle shackles and fled.

Klaas had consoled her parents as they waited for her return and became her steadfast admirer. On Sunday, they found each other and hugged.

When Sanchez said she became a “full-blown alcoholic at 14,” Klaas helped her navigate a healthier future.

“I was angry and raging because of what happened to me and when Mark came back into my life at 16, he paved the way for me to become an advocate,” Sanchez, 31, said in an interview. “He was like the pillar, the lead man in charge.”

Sanchez is one of a small number of victims who survive stranger abductions. Most, like Polly Klaas, never stood a chance – and it’s that knowledge that has made Klaas’s work so emotionally draining.

“When we go into these cases, knowing what the outcome will most probably be, that’s not something we can share,” he said. “We can’t tell a family, ‘be prepared for the worst’ because they have to be hopeful and we’re hopeful with them. And sometimes these things go on for a long time. In the LaMar case, they were searching for years.”

Klaas said the anger and sadness of his daughter’s death has never gone away. He woke up feeling anxious Sunday morning.

“This day weighs on my soul,” he said. “Here we are 30 years later and we’re still dealing with all the same emotions we were dealing with when this first happened.”

The Oct. 1, 1993 abduction of Klaas’s only child from her mother’s home, the discovery of Polly’s body two months later and the trial and conviction of Richard Allen Davis three years after that transfixed the nation.

Those first months were “the beginning of a nightmare,” he said. He lost 30 pounds.

Klaas became a constant fixture on national news and used his position to advocate for child safety legislation, including the “three strikes” law that might have prevented his daughter’s death. Davis, who remains on death row, had been convicted twice before for kidnapping when he killed Polly.

When President Bill Clinton signed his major 1994 crime bill, Klaas stood behind him during the ceremony in the Oval Office. Clinton gave Klaas the pen, which is framed and hanging in his office.

KlaasKids Foundation advocated for child sex offender registries and stiffer sentences for crimes against children. His foundation’s community outreach program has fingerprinted, photographed and educated more than a million children – all paid for with donations, he said.

“Before Polly was kidnapped, people didn’t pay much attention to that issue and we always said it was because they’re small, they don’t have money, they don’t vote,” he said. “Immediately, we started advocating for change.”

In 1999, he said, 797,000 children were reported missing to law enforcement. By 2019, that number dropped to 370,000. “I like to think that the KlaasKids Foundation advocacy has had something to do with that,” he said. He plans to close the foundation at the end of 2024. He has created a workbook for communities to follow in case of future child abductions with tips on searches and gaining media exposure.

For the anniversary event, Klaas’s sister, Juliet Puleo, flew in from New York. She has nothing but admiration for her brother.

“The loss was so great that it was the choice between crawling into a hole and dying or just flipping it on its head and doing,” she said. “It became his mission in life. It absolutely culminated in this new way of living, where you don’t really live for yourself anymore. You live for her.”