For the Lost Blog

The missing infant Shannon Dedrick, whom I wrote about before due to her bizarre connection to the disappearance of Paul Baker, has been found safe. She was apparently under the bed of Paul’s stepmother (Susan Baker), in a box. The stepmother is being charged along with the mother of Shannon. I’m still not sure the mother was fully involved – both of Shannon’s parents are developmentally disabled, and it’s possible that the mother was hoodwinked in some way. After all, kidnapping is a far more serious charge than taking an abandonded baby or buying an infant.

I hope that there is some new effort to locate the remains of Paul with this new publicity.

Very recently, a seven month old girl named Shannon Dedrick went missing from her Chipley, Florida home. A person of interest has been named, Susan Baker. And she is a suspect in the presumed homicide of her stepson, Paul Baker, who went missing in 1987. She sent a e-mail to several people claiming Shannon was in danger from her parents. (They are apparently both developmentally delayed.)

I don’t know if Susan Baker is being looked at because of Paul’s disappearance, or for some other reason, but it makes one of the strangest connections between missing persons cases I’ve seen.

The New York Times has a featured article about runaways and the life they face on the streets. None of this is new information, of course. The facts that runaways are usually running away from some sort of serious problem and that they frequently engage in illegal activity to survive has been documented since the 70’s. Still, more coverage of the issue is needed as many still do not consider it a serious problem.

I just found a podcast on international parental kidnapping. Patrick Braden, father of abducted Melissa Braden, speaks on the subject. It’s almost ninety minutes long, but it’s well worth a listen and covers a lot of the bases of the problem.

Both the case of David Goldman and the one of Christopher Savoie have gotten much media attention recently, and since I have not written on the former and have only recently heard of the latter, I felt it was time to write about both.

If there was to be chosen a public face of the left-behind parent, I could think of few better than David Goldman. He was never accused of abuse by his ex-wife. When she died after giving birth to a child in Brazil, any presumption of Sean Goldman’s well-being contingent upon staying with his mother were negated, and he has worked tirelessly to promote his son returning to New Jersey. Much of this publicity has brought attention to the problem of parental kidnapping, especially international kidnapping. Like with many high-profile disappearances, it makes others aware of the problem. On David’s site, linked above, the forums are devoted not only to his case but to many other kidnapping cases that are not nearly as high-profile. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the forums and have posted there many times.) The fact that his apparently ironclad case in a country that has signed the Hague Treaty is still being fought only indicates the lack of consistancy in such cases, as well as the overwhelming need in most of them to put citizens first rather than the best needs of the child. I am also aware some left-behind parents might despair over the case – if all that publicity and support hasn’t brought Sean Goldman back to the US, how will they succeed in getting their own children back?

Perhaps this is what Christopher Savoie was thinking when he decided to go to Japan and try to abduct his kids back. I do not like the idea of taking the law into your own hands in family abduction cases; it can only make matters worse. But on the other hand, he probably knew that he had no chance with the Japanese legal system. Japan has not signed the Hague Treaty, so the country doesn’t even need to make a pretense of trying to return kids. I know of only one case where a child was returned, and he did so on his own at fifteen. And in Japan one parent is expected to disappear after a divorce. (There is one case where a Japanese politician divorced when his wife was pregnant and has a son he has never seen.) Knowing all that, I can at least understand his motivations in trying a re-snatch. He tried to prevent his ex-wife from going to Japan in the first place but the courts said she could visit the country. He very well knew if she left there was a good chance she’d never return. Now he’s being charged with abduction, even though parental kidnapping is supposedly not a crime in Japan. Some have brought up the specter of “cultural relativism” in this case. While I accept that most countries do not share identical values, I am sure most will agree with me that ordering a parent to essentially vanish, and encouraging such behavior by not signing the Hague, is detremential to the child. Even under the idea of another culture’s values access to one’s child is a basic human right that should only be deprived if the parent is a threat to the child’s safety, which is not the case here.

He currently faces five years in jail. I don’t know if he will serve any of this, or will merely be deported. However, this could be the next face of the left-behind parent in the news. And with that could come the stream of publicity that may force Japanese law to change once and for all.

I posted the link to the article about the recovery of John Calhoun before, but didn’t read the comments until later.

And was stunned by this comment.

The FACTS are the mom & son did not have to come back. They did and that tells me there is more to this story. The article alone reads a mother was forced to relocate to 2 countries and cultures to keep her son safe. She is a great mom until the sperm side can prove her guilt.

Let me get this straight. The mom’s wanted. She turns herself in, and the dad is assumed to be the bad guy until shown otherwise? I know that when a mom abducts her kids, people will defend her more than a dad who abducts, but the outrageousness of this comment still stuns me.

I just visited their home page and it now says that they will close at the end of the month. It’s one of the very first missing childrens’ organizations to exist; it even predates NCMEC. (I’m pretty sure the oldest is Child Find of America.) This is saddening news. Even though there are many more resources available now than in 1979, it was still a useful presence. Obviously this means any cases on the site not on others are going to be California Kids cases if they are eligible. Not something I want to have happen.

The amount of times I have now read a comment on the news stories devoted to the recovery of Richard Chekevdia that says “she must have had a very good reason” baffles me. She kept her child inside for two years. In a tiny room. No one would be defending a male abductor. Is it really so ingrained in people that mothers always do best for their children that they will excuse anything they do? And are there more than a handful of kidnapping cases where mom doesn’t say she did it to protect her kid from their evil abusive father?

I suspect the answer is “no.”

I have just received word Richard Chekevdia has been found safe. According to this article, he has spent the past two years in a hidden four by twelve room. To give you an idea how small that is, it’s only slightly larger than a two person Smart car. He was not allowed to go outside. I’m used to bad treatment of kids in these cases, but these circumstances still stun me. I have resolved his case. The new case on the site is that of Sean Morrow.

Only a short few days after I write a post about him, Luca Principali is found safe. His mother turned herself in to the police. I’m glad about this. One can only wonder if this is in the trend of the honesty I touched on previously – if you flat out admit you took the kid for spite there’s less justification for keeping them away from the other parent on your part. I wish him and his father the best in re-adjusting.