Calif. mother finds daughter on Facebook after 15-year search; father arrested for kidnapping

Calif. mother finds daughter on Facebook after 15-year search; father arrested for kidnapping

www.foxnews.com

MONTCLAIR, Calif. (AP) — Prince Sagala desperately searched for her son and daughter for 15 years, fearing she had lost them forever to the estranged husband who took them to his native Mexico.

Her fears were replaced by joy when she typed her daughter's name into Facebook on a library computer and discovered that her children, now 16 and 17, were safe and with their father. She soon learned they were living near Disney World in Florida.

But in a span of days, a mother eagerly hoping for a

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow what a story, Its not surprising that kids are freaked out by mom, they have been told bad things about her, now there dad is in jail, oh Im sure there thrilled to have her back in her life.'

Not saying she was wrong any parent would continue to lookfor there missing kids.'

Its just too back us parents can't act like good parents in bad situations....

Amazing that a illegal immigrant can live with 2 kids that have been kidnapped right out in the open.... Fake drivers license, and Im sure the kids names were on national data bases....???

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by LDragonFire

Wow what a story, Its not surprising that kids are freaked out by mom, they have been told bad things about her, now there dad is in jail, oh Im sure there thrilled to have her back in her life.'

usually the abductor does not even speak of the abandoned parent and waits for time to erase questions, like "When can we see mom (dad) again? it can be called Parental Alienation.

having experienced " parental kidnapping" of my son. I can relate to the pain.

Very sad story indeed!!

What a horrible lapse of judgment by the mother!! It's really shows how horrible the system works for family matters. Putting the father in jail did absolutely nothing but destroy the children's last few years before getting smacked by adulthood.

What if the mother did have issues? I'd have done the same with my children too if I feared for their well being. Courts in most places will not in the majority of situations separate children from the mother.

The kids are so close to being adults and out on their own. There should just be a contempt of court charge, then a new hearing allowing the CHILDREN to decide since they are now old enough now to do so. Then allow the mother to file a civil case against him upon the children reaching 18. That would be in the kids best interest. They are going to hate the mother now no matter what now and by the time she gets them they will just emancipate themselves.

This just goes to show that practicing cookie cutter law doesn't work. Sure it sucks for the mother, but she's waited 15 years. If it was about the kids at all, and not some pay back, she could have arranged to meet them and let bygones be bygones. For those who are going to jump me and say he deserves to be in jail, I agree, BUT there is no statute of limitation (apparently) on the charges he faced. Anyone who cared and had half a brain would let the kids lives stay in tact a few more years, then file the charges if, after seeing how the kids turned out, they still feel the need to alert the authorities.

reply to post by PayMeh


The truth is that out of an average of 200,000 to 300,000 cases of parental abduction each year,(according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) less than 1% involve plausible, provable fears of abuse or danger to the child. In almost every other case, it is simply a matter of one parent trying to hurt the other parent.


I agree the mother could have done more earlier to try find them. The family court system is a joke and deeply biased mainly towards women

[edit on 10-6-2010 by GodsOfNothing]

I believe this is being discussed here from last week.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by GodsOfNothing


Yes, but provable fears turns into "he said/she said." It's extremely hard to substantiate dangerous situations unless there has been an incident. I'm not doubting your numbers, just that the burden of proof is very high. I'd believe the actual number of those who truly think their child is in danger to be high. And of the men who decide to take this route, I would think the numbers to be extremely high simply for the fact that a woman's maternal instinct can conflict with what's best for the child. Men on the other hand, unencumbered by maternal instinct, find it easier to allow the other parent custody if it does not mean putting the child in harms way by doing so.

Anyways, I agree too. Not arguing, just trying to put my point into words. This subject hits a little too close to home for me too.

If the kids turned out well, I'm sure he has his peace of mind. In the end that's all that matters.

It is about justice. The mother was deprived of her children for years. It sounds like she looked for them when she could also. She hears about facebook and finds them that way. He broke the law and is in jail for it. He should be punished. The mother needs to have justice served.

The trauma those kids are feeling are the fault of the father, not the mother.

My ex took off with my daughter twice and never served a second in jail for it. I was not even allowed to press charges. His visitation rights had even been terminated the second time he took off with her, so he had no legal rights whatsoever to be around him. He was extremely abusive, but since he is a government employee, it was all okay to the courts.

I'm glad this man is in jail where he belongs and that this woman at least has some closure. The children will have to process what their father did to them, but that is the father's fault.

reply to post by Jessicamsa


So you'd rather see the mother have justice even if it means the kids suffer and are shipped to the OTHER side of the country with at best a year to adjust to a new environment?

You my poor misguided soul proves my point. Jaded women like you who would martyr their children, the innocents, for "justice" is what's wrong.

Being a parent is much like governing. Every decision you make is supposed to be about those you serve. Parents are so disconnected with this fact it's no wonder the country is in the shape it's in. No one's teaching the kids that it's wrong to make collateral damage out of the people you're a protectorate over. Parents are stuck on being righteous and laying blame. None of that matters. Only the kids matter.

reply to post by LDragonFire

Amazing that a illegal immigrant can live with 2 kids that have been kidnapped

Where did it say he was an illegal immigrant?

What a sad story

When I saw the title of the thread I thought it was going to have a happy ending.

Such a terrible thing for someone to do to their children, to deprive them of either of their parents for almost all of their lives, is just terrible.

Then, with a sad smile, she summed up what she's missed with the older ones: "Every single day."

That has got to be one of the saddest things I've heard.



www.foxnews.com... d&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fus+%28Text+-+US%29

reply to post by PayMeh

What a horrible lapse of judgment by the mother!!

What was a horrible lapse in judgement on the mother's part ?

The kids are so close to being adults and out on their own. There should just be a contempt of court charge, then a new hearing allowing the CHILDREN to decide since they are now old enough now to do so. Then allow the mother to file a civil case against him upon the children reaching 18. That would be in the kids best interest. They are going to hate the mother now no matter what now and by the time she gets them they will just emancipate themselves.

So what you're saying is that the courts should just ignore the fact that this man kidnapped his children, and merely hit him with contempt of court charges ?

He robbed his children of their right to grow up knowing their mother. He robbed their mother of her children.

Let the children decide ? Gee I wonder who they'll choose to live with, the father that they have been with all of their lives, or the mother that they were ripped away from as babies, and never had a chance to know

Sounds like they already hate her, thanks to their father.

Sure it sucks for the mother,

That has got to be the clearest example of an understatement that I have ever seen.

but she's waited 15 years. If it was about the kids at all, and not some pay back, she could have arranged to meet them and let bygones be bygones.

Do you even understand what that statement means ? There was no past greivance for her to disregard in this matter, the man stole her children from her and continued to keep them from her for 15 years, how does someone disregard that.

It wasn't about payback, it was about finding her kids.

Anyone who cared and had half a brain would let the kids lives stay in tact a few more years, then file the charges if, after seeing how the kids turned out, they still feel the need to alert the authorities.

Anyone that cared and had half a brain would never have denied their children their mother in the first place.

And just exactly how would she know how the kids turned out being that she hadn't seen them for 15 years and the daughter refused to talk to her ?


BTW it's not the mother that files charges, it's the state.

reply to post by chise61


If you read my first statement more carefully you'd realize I advocated for her to file civil charges on top of him actually dealing with the criminal charges. I do not advocate that he gets off scot free.

What I'm saying is simply this :

1) Alerting the state that she found her children destroyed there children's established lives. These kids are 12 months away from being able to legally emancipate themselves.

2) Nothing she does can give her back the 15 years she's lost. The only hope she had was to make contact and try to develop an ADULT relationship with them. Treating them like stolen property and demanding they come live with her at this stage in their lives is an egregious lapse of judgment. The only thing she has done now is to make sure they will never have a relationship with her.

3) Depending on what grades they are in, transferring schools can mean not graduating on time. Courses may not be able to be transferred. You may need more elective credits than what you needed at the original school. The usual consequence to this is that the kid - faced with another full year of school now because they don't have enough credits - drops out.

4) Nothing she did is going to make up for the 15 years. Alerting the state AT THIS POINT IN TIME helps the children in no way. It hurts them in every way.

5) These are only children in the eyes of the law for at MOST 2-3 more years. It has nothing to do with getting her "kids" back because those days are long gone. Trying to force any kind of relationship on them is absurd.

Her decision to alert the state so they could pursue the charges was self serving, selfish, and shows lack of thought for the well being of the children.

Again.. I'm not saying he doesn't get charged.

I'm saying wait for the children to graduate high school, go to college, move out of the fathers house, whatever they are going to do to start out their adult lives. It's hard enough with a stable support base these days. No need to set them up to fail before they even try.

After you make sure the kids are going to be okay, then you can fulfill any sort of revenge you wish.

Anything from here on out regarding the kids is a moot point. By the time anything sets in motion regarding custody they won't be considered minors anymore.

Also.. As far as anyone knows he might have had a good reason to do what he did.

Your assumption on "robbed them of their right to grow up knowing their mother" is also misguided. How many mothers deny their kids the right to know their father everyday?

Your response reeks of an emotional knee jerk reaction.

It does no good to argue because we could go back and forth for 10 pages. If you think I'm wrong, no amount of explaining is going to make you understand where I'm coming from. I'll end by saying there were better, more diplomatic ways she could have handled this where the children and her relationship with them did not become collateral damage.

Originally posted by PayMeh
I'll end by saying there were better, more diplomatic ways she could have handled this where the children and her relationship with them did not become collateral damage.

It seemed like she tried but the kids ignored her. So getting the state involved may not have been her first choice. But with them already ignoring her, maybe she felt she had nothing to lose by trying something else, like getting the state involved. But she probably didn't think it through, it was probably an emotional reaction.

reply to post by PayMeh

If you read my first statement more carefully you'd realize I advocated for her to file civil charges on top of him actually dealing with the criminal charges. I do not advocate that he gets off scot free.

You may be right, I may have missed where you said that. All I seem to be able to see is this....

There should just be a contempt of court charge, then a new hearing allowing the CHILDREN to decide since they are now old enough now to do so. Then allow the mother to file a civil case against him upon the children reaching 18.

I don't see you advocating him having to face criminal charges for what he's done.

Your assumption on "robbed them of their right to grow up knowing their mother" is also misguided. How many mothers deny their kids the right to know their father everyday?

Quite a lot actually. I know first hand as I've had to deal with my grandchildren's mother do this to my son everytime she didn't get her own way for the first four years of their life. And I saw first hand what it did to my grandchildren to be denied their father, grandmother, uncle, etc.

I also know first hand what it's like when men do the same thing. I know what it did to my family when my step father took my brother to get back at my mother because she wouldn't reconcile with him.

Men and women are both capable of using their children as pawns in some sick game.

No child should ever be taken away from either parent, unless the parent is guilty of abuse or neglect. So far none of us knows if the mother was guilty of either. If she wasn't guilty of either, then yes her children were robbed of knowing their mother.

And what exactly does the fact that many mothers deny their children the right to know their fathers everyday have to do with this particular case. You accussed someone else of being jaded, seems to me that you may be the jaded one.

Your response reeks of an emotional knee jerk reaction.

And your response reeks of the emotional knee jerk reaction of a jaded man that has some kind of problem with women. As seen here.....

And of the men who decide to take this route, I would think the numbers to be extremely high simply for the fact that a woman's maternal instinct can conflict with what's best for the child. Men on the other hand, unencumbered by maternal instinct, find it easier to allow the other parent custody if it does not mean putting the child in harms way by doing so.

Unless the mother was guilty of abuse, or neglect, it was the father that turned them into collateral damage. But I wouldn't expect you to be able to understand that, being as how since women do it every day it justifies a man doing the same