In an interview Friday, Young revealed for the first time that the girl had sent three different letters to her mom during her captivity.
The first envelope contained letters to her mother and her boyfriend, dated Oct. 22. The girl tried to scratch a secret message to her mother with one of her acrylic nails, but Kibby discovered it and made her write another letter.
"She paid a hefty price for that," Young said.
Authorities did not reveal the letter to the public until December, after they spent weeks verifying that the girl had written it, and trying to trace its path. And shortly after that December news conference, the girl sent a second letter. She was OK but she wasn't ready to come home, she wrote.
She didn't try to send another secret message. "She learned her lesson from the first letter," Young said.
The girl sent one final letter in June, for her mom's birthday.
Near the end of her imprisonment, Kibby sometimes took the girl out for rides, putting her in the trunk or backseat. "All she craved was air and sun," Young said. "He brought her to some obscure places."