For the Lost Blog

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To Jennifer Aguilera-Hurtado, the U.S.-Mexico border is still as porous as a screen door, the illicit traffic between the two countries breezing through despite stretches of wall and wire, patrols of National Guardsmen and Minutemen, Arizona ire and the cruel heat of an endless desert.

“Every day, you hear about how many people are crossing the border illegally,” she says. “It’s always in the news.”

She’s not so much concerned with what or who is coming into the United States, though, but who is going out: Children, hundreds of them, snatched up and sneaked across the border by one parent against the wishes of the other and in violation of custody orders.

“This is the border crisis you never hear about,” she says.

Mexico has the highest number of international parental child abduction cases from the United States, according to the U.S. State Department. Right now, there are just under 600 open cases involving almost 900 children illegally taken by a parent into Mexico, a State Department official says.

Two of those children are Aguilera-Hurtado’s. Hannah is 3 and Teresa will be 8 on Wednesday, and their mother will be 1,535 miles and a world away in Albuquerque for that birthday.

This is an article I found about the Aguilera-Hurtado girls. Apparently their father who abducted them is broke and can’t fight more in the Mexican courts, but the kids are still in an orphanage, much like Liam McCarty. I’m not sure there’s much more I can say about the ridiculousness of that.

I have just received word that Jean Paul Lacombe has been found in France and reunited with his mother. I wish them the best in reuniting. This was the second time Jean Paul was taken by his father; the first time he was also found in France. Two abductions is two more than his father should have been allowed. At the very least he should only have closely supervised visits with his son. I also hope the judge who did not read Spanish (and apparently could find no one else to do so, Spanish speakers being so rare in Texas) and assumed a Mexican arrest warrant was a paper giving his father custody in that country is at the very least suspended from practice for some time. The new case on the site is that of Ryan Powell.

Police Say Woman Wore Disguises After Fleeing With Children

A nationwide search for a New Hampshire mother wanted on a custody offense has come to an end.

Erika Ahearn was arrested in Florida. Police said she has gone by different names and changed her look to keep her children hidden.

Investigators said her cell phone and debit card use allowed police to track her down.

This article which I just recently found about the Rowe children indicates that their mother was also wanted on gun charges and was apparently considered armed and dangerous. I didn’t know this before posting the case, but am glad it was resolved without incident. That information alone is another indication of family abduction not being a harmless crime.

They found Jorge Sanchez Aguilera. But not his son.

They found Eileen Sams Clark. But not her kids.

I will tell myself they’re just being stubborn for not revealing where the kids are. If I do so often enough, maybe it can become true. (Yes, I think it’s possible all four are alive, but this sort of news makes me feel cold.)

Link here

ST. LOUIS – An Alaska woman suspected of kidnapping her daughter two years ago was arrested in Missouri during a routine traffic stop after police noticed she and her young passenger appeared far too nervous for only missing a license plate, authorities said Tuesday.

Mary Joe Burgener, 44, of Wasilla, Alaska, was being held in Lincoln County while she awaits extradition, Troy Police Chief Jeff Taylor said. Her 13-year-old daughter, Noel Tara Burgener, has been reunited with her father in Alaska.

This article about Noel Burgener states that they were in fact in Missouri, which a commentator on this blog stated they were. Whether or not this person did in fact see them, it is good Noel is back home and I wish her and her father the best in reuniting.

Link here

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. — A man wanted for allegedly abducting his two children seven years ago in Texas has been arrested in Pennsylvania.

State police say 41-year-old Froylan Ocampo Nava was arrested Sunday night in Orrstown, about 30 miles southwest of Harrisburg. Authorities say he had been living in Shippensburg.

I found this article about Felipe and Jose Nava Jaimes on a web search. It is short on details but gives the surprising news they were in Pennsylvania, rather than Mexico as originally thought. This reinforces the fact that an abducted child can literally be anywhere. I wish them and their mother the best in reuniting.

Story here

A father is behind bars, arrested for allegedly kidnapped his own children from California 14 years ago, and bringing them to Central Florida to live.

For years, investigators have been searching for him, but it was the social networking website Facebook that delivered the break it took more than a decade to get, MyFoxOrlando reports.

Faustino Utrera is now charged with two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of violating child custody orders.

The story indicates that the mother first found her daughter on facebook, and they conversed a few times before her daughter said she wanted nothing to do with her. The father might have used the “mom died” excuse to take them, but he clearly was engaging in some form of parental alienation. For those who think that is because of the arrest, I’ll note that mom tried to reconnect with her daughter before the father was arrested. The mother as far as I know has not been accused of anything by the father, so that can be ruled out as an alternate explanation of why her own children don’t want anything to do with her. It’s an all too common outcome of a parental kidnapping case.

Child Find of America offers a series of yearly PDF files on their site that summarize some of the cases they have dealt with that year. I just recently found them, and one, although from 2006, shows a very good example of what can and should be done in a family abduction recovery.

Bijanjon Kavoossi was abducted by his mother from Ohio in 1996. Ten years later he was found in Greece. Child Find and NCMEC were working together to help with Bijanjon’s reunion with his father in the United States. They asked his mother not be arrested in front of him, and mentioned that a “domestic violence” situation in Greece may complicate matters. (The file is not more explicit about that and I am not sure the precise complications that may have resulted.) He was flown into JFK airport, where individuals with both organizations met with him and took him to the hotel where his father awaited him. The father had been told to bring pictures and familiar toys to make the reunion easier. Bijanjon reacted in a typical manner for most family abduction situations. He felt bad his mother had abducted him, but he was also concerned about whether he would see her again. He also wondered where his father had been, whether he loved him, and whether he had been looking for him. He met with his father again in an emotional reunion, and they began to build a relationship again both on what was in the past and what they might share in the future.

The whole situation was well thought out and gave attention to what would be a difficult situation. If not all family abduction recoveries have these circumstances, many should. It should stand as an excellent example.

I was doing some web research for the case file of Gabriel Johnson, who I’ve posted about several times before and plan to add to the site in June. I learned that Elizabeth Johnson’s mother was Rosslyn Puckett. And her aunt (Rosslyn’s sister) was… Jane Puckett. Who went missing in 1977, believed to have been abducted, and was found safe last year.

Does it mean anything? Well, no, probably. But this is even weirder than the Shannon Dedrick/Paul Baker connection.

Zara Malani-Lin Abdur-Raheem. I had known about her case for some time but I was unaware her father was also charged with kidnapping her. She will be added to the victims list, and I am now too drained for tears.