Once they are moved to the back burner, not many cold cases stand a realistic chance of being solved. That wasn’t the story for a three-year-old Missouri child abduction case, however.
A sheriff’s detective in Pulaski County recently reviewed the case of a 30-year-old woman who allegedly abducted her daughter in 2008 after a long-running child custody dispute with the girl’s father. Two weeks before the incident, a judge had awarded joint custody of the child to the woman and the child’s father. The woman evidently left a note for her parents and the child’s father to say she was leaving with the girl and then disappeared. She was charged with child abduction at the time.
The officer was able to follow up on some new information – just what that information was hasn’t been disclosed – and located the mother in Shawnee, Kansas. The mother has been arrested and Missouri authorities are waiting to see if she will be extradited back to Pulaski County. The daughter, who is now 10 years old, is in the custody of Kansas Child Protective Services.
Child custody disagreements, like the one that led to the incident, can be fraught with emotion and can be quite tense and draining. Both parties involved in disputes like these will want to proceed as calmly and carefully as possible – cooler heads often make better, more rational choices and it is easier to make good long-term decisions when you’re focusing in the bigger picture. If it ever feels like emotions are welling too high, it might not be a bad idea to step back and think before making any rash decisions.
Source: Ozarks First, “Mother Arrested in 3-year Old Abduction Case,” 7 June 2011.
