The recovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard last week from kidnapper rapists Phillip and Nancy Garrido reminds us of the many children who have been kidnapped and are still missing.
Parental abduction
Madison Tenn was 3-years-old when she was taken from her home in Sacramento, California by her mother Shannon Phillips on what was supposed to be a vacation.
Madison is one of the 200,000 victims of parental child abduction every year, the most common form of child abduction.
When Madison's father Donald Tenn refused to follow Phillips to Illinois, she initiated a divorce. Phillips has been able to avoid returning Madison to California by using a common tool in child custody cases, a false allegation of domestic violence.
Phillips continues to use the magic word fear even though police had never been called to their house, and Phillips had never claimed there were problems before she left California. See Dirty little secrets of domestic violence programs.
Illinois police by order of the District Attorney refuse to assist Tenn, who had been Madison's stay-at-home parent, in seeing his daughter. Even though he was given court-ordered visitation by a California judge who scolded Phillips for a frivilous restraining order request. "I still send packages to Madison every week, like I have since she left 3 years ago," Tenn said recently, "but I have no idea if she's getting them."
Tenn is now President of Fathers 4 Justice. See Good dads reach new heights to protect their children
Stranger abduction
Morgan Nick was 6-years-old when she was kidnapped by a stranger from a ballpark in Alma, Arkansas in 1995. Abductions by strangers with the intent to keep, kill or ransom are rare, only about 115 a year. As a 20-year-old today Morgan would look similar to the photo on the left.
Police want to talk to the man who owns a red Ford pickup with possible damage to the right rear and a white camper that was described as four or five inches too short for the truck.
Mother Colleen Nick told ksl.com, "Early on, people said, `It's been too long, maybe you should face reality.' But my reality is my little girl is missing." Nick, who is responsible for the creation of Arkansas' Morgan Nick/Amber Alert system said, "Giving up is not an option. Part of your heart is walking around somewhere without you."
For more info on Madison Tenn:
For more info on Morgan Nick:
For more info on Jaycee Lee Dugard:
Girls learn Alissa is mom Jaycee, reports of sex parties, meth
Breakthrough sex and fatherhood changed him claims Garrido, videos
Jaycee Dugard confined in shed, had two daughters by abductor
Jaycee Dugard bore children of sex offender abductor, video, map
Jaycee Dugard reappears 18 years after abduction, updates: arrests, searches
Comments
Teri,
I'm glad to see that other people are taking notice to, and writing about the statistics of familial abductions. Runaways are the highest 'group' of missing children, followed by familial abductions.
Yet even with the statistics, stranger danger is still taught to our children, and the general public still ASSUMES that a child abducted by their parent is 'probably o.k.'
HOW can we as parents, who know firsthand how much of a struggle it is to get ANY media involvement, counselor intervention, or financial help due to a parental abduction, change the public perception? Even AMBER ALERT makes a parental abduction sound less than it is!
TWICE on the same page AMBER ALERT clearly states that a stranger abduction is more dangerous to a child than a parental abduction.
"Clearly, stranger abductions are the most dangerous for children"
PLEASE explain THAT to CAYLEE ANTHONY and GIOVANNI GONZALEZ.
It's not an abduction when one parent has gone to court and gotten legal custody. The mother in the first case has legal custody and Illinois is the appropriate jurisdiction for the father to request visitation. The Illinois courts have not called the mother's fears "frivilous" and have refused the father's requests. He's had his day in courts in both states and both have said the child should be left with her mother. In fact, the father recently arrested for his actions as part of this campaign outside of the courts.
holly, you are wrong. california has always been the state with jurisdiction. madison was illegally removed from california by her mother. yet judges in both states have sent tenn back to the opposite state.
the system is a wreck - and needs immediate and severe overhaul.
I'm glad I found this site just now.
As the father of four children who disappeared from Oregon 14 years ago, I'm happy to find people who will understand what I'm talking about.
The Oregon legislature passed its landmark anti-kidnapping statute, Senate Bill 1041, Aaron's Law, named for my son Aaron Cruz, in 2005, shortly after his death. Aaron was the only child that I was able to recover.
With Aarons Law, Oregon is the only state in the US where child abduction creates a civil cause of action, meaning that you can sue a person for kidnapping your child.
I hope a version of Aarons Law take effect in every state.
See www.aaronslaw.blogspot.com for the story of Aarons Law and the Parental Abduction Wisdom series.
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