Whatever happened to the mythical American neighbourhood, that Rockwellian idyll of friendliness and normality, where no problem cannot be resolved by the community spirit, and nothing nasty ever happens?

Kate McCann did something frighteningly normal recently. She stopped at a petrol station, and went in to pay, leaving her 8-year-old twins strapped in the back seat.

A West Auckland man is facing up to 14 years in jail after he allegedly lied to police about being kidnapped and torching his own mother's car.

An Irish property developer who was allegedly kidnapped for eight months has been released from police custody.

A film telling the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch reveals for the first time that she was repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her as a schoolgirl.

Two Rotorua women who bashed a man over the head with a frying pan then tied him up, gagged him and robbed him have been jailed.

Four Gisborne men are facing kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges after a car deal went wrong.

A man who murdered an Auckland man with a thistle grubber has been jailed for life with a non-parole period of 21 years.

A woman who kidnapped a newborn baby from hospital to convince her partner she had given birth has been banned from having unsupervised access to babies.

Wayne Bracken was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Jack Davis in 2011. But co-accused Neville Dangen, 24 was found not guilty of the same charges.

A man accused of murdering an Auckland father was so forensically aware, he trimmed his nails and hair and burned bloody clothing, a court has been told.