She called herself "Nickie." Blond and blue-eyed, dressed neatly, always polite, she worked as a baby sitter in West Mifflin and lived in McKeesport. Or so she said.

Above: Tanya Kach in 1996. Below: Tanya as she appears today.

In fact, her name is Tanya Kach, and she's been missing since Feb. 10, 1996, when she was a 14-year-old McKeesport junior high school student.

For 10 years, neither police nor family heard from her.

That changed Tuesday morning when she told a McKeesport convenience store owner who she was and that she wanted to go home.

Today, Ms. Kach, 24, is with her father at his McKeesport home. She could not be reached for comment.

Allegheny County police yesterday arrested Thomas Hose, 48, of 1002 Soles St., McKeesport, charging him with a variety of sex crimes.

Mr. Hose's attorney, James M. Ecker, said yesterday that Ms. Kach "was not held against her will."

County Police Supt. Charles Moffatt said in a press conference yesterday that during the early portion of her disappearance, Ms. Kach had help altering her appearance, but did not elaborate.

A woman answering the phone at the Hose residence last night declined comment.

Whatever Ms. Kach's motivations were initially during her disappearance, interviews yesterday with acquaintances of hers point to a life that turned to one of captivity, isolation and fear during the past decade.

Her story unfolded during the past six months, when she was in JJ's Deli Mart on Versailles Street. At the store, where neighborhood children buy candy after school and locals help themselves to hot coffee, Ms. Kach shared snippets of her life with owner Joe Sparico and his wife, Janet.

She would buy a soda, Mr. Sparico said, and talk about nothing. It was clear, he said, that she was lonely, that she needed someone to talk to. She felt comfortable around the Sparicos, even visiting their home once.

As time passed, Ms. Kach gradually shared more information. One day she told them she lived just two blocks away, on Soles Street. She was living with a 47-year-old security guard who worked at Century III Mall. He'd taken her in, she told them, after she lost her baby-sitting job and had nowhere to go.

Sometime later, she revealed that the house where she lived with the man, his elderly parents and his son, had only a single bathroom in the basement.

In later conversations with the Sparicos, she said that when the man left for work, he often locked her in a bedroom. She used a metal can for a toilet. He forbid his parents to open the door.

Why don't you leave, the Sparicos asked her.

Ms. Kach cried and told them she feared for her life; she said the man threatened to kill her if she ever revealed her situation.

Tuesday, she told Mr. Sparico that her name was Tanya Kach and that she'd been missing for 10 years.

Mr. Sparico immediately called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to confirm that a Tanya Kach was missing. His next call was to Allegheny County Sheriff's Deputy Eugene Riazzi, who had handled the investigation into Ms. Kach's 1994 disappearance when he worked for the McKeesport police.

The news brought back memories for the deputy, who remembered all the dead ends he'd encountered during his investigation, despite the help of Allegheny County homicide detectives, an FBI database, age-progression photographs and hours of tracking down and talking to possible suspects.

It was like any other investigation, said the deputy, who joined the county sheriff's department in 2000. No matter how cold the case became, no one quit on it; it remained open.

By yesterday, Mr. Sparico was fielding news media phone calls from around the country and scheduling appearances on national TV talk shows.

And Ms. Kach was leading a new life, getting reacquainted with her old life.

Mr. Sparico said she told him "I'm so happy" in an early morning phone call. She'd been up for 29 straight hours, talking to her father, luxuriating in her old bedroom, enjoying a clean bathroom.

"I've got blood," she told him during the call. "I've got family," she said. "I'm home."

---

Correction/Clarification: (Published Mar. 24, 2006) The first name of Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt was given incorrectly in the version of this story as originally published on March. 23, 2006 about the re-emergence of Tanya Kach of McKeesport, who had been missing for 10 years.