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Blended Families
MrsBPO
member
Did you all hear/read about this?
MrsBPO
member
Some mothers will go too far to "protect" their kids (i.e. avenge themselves against the fathers, imo)
https://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/20742964/detail.html
Boy Found Behind Wall At Grandma's Home
Boy's Mother Charged With Felony Child Abduction
JIM SUHR, Associated Press Writer
POSTED: 9:09 am EDT September 5, 2009
UPDATED: 12:21 pm EDT September 5,
ST. LOUIS -- A boy allegedly abducted in a custody dispute nearly two years ago has turned up alive, hiding with his mother in a small, specially built secret room at his grandmother's Illinois home, investigators said.
Richard "Ricky" Chekevdia, who turns 7 on Sept. 14, was in good spirits and physically fit after being found Friday by investigators with a court order to search the two-story rural home in southern Illinois' Franklin County, about 120 miles southeast of St. Louis.
The boy's mother, 30-year-old Shannon Wilfong, is charged with felony child abduction. The grandmother, 51-year-old Diane Dobbs, is charged with aiding and abetting. Wilfong remained jailed Saturday on $42,500 bond in Benton, Ill., where Dobbs was being held on $1,000 bond. The women did not have attorneys listed Saturday in online court records.
The boy was staying Saturday with one of his father's relatives while state child-welfare workers investigated claims the father abused the child before his disappearance -- allegations rejected by the dad, who's thrilled the agonizing search has ended.
Two years? You have no idea," Mike Chekevdia, a 48-year-old former police officer who's a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois National Guard, told The Associated Press by telephone Saturday from his house in Royalton, Ill., some three miles from the home where his son turned up. "I've lost sleep. I've lost weight. I've gained weight. I wouldn't wish this on anybody."
After hearing his son had been found, Chekevdia said, "you could have knocked me over with a feather."
Chekevdia won temporary custody of his son shortly before the boy and his mother -- Chekevdia's former girlfriend -- disappeared in November 2007. Chekevdia said he long suspected his son was being stowed by Dobbs, although there were no signs of the boy at her home when it was searched with her consent after his disappearance. Wilfong was charged in December 2007 with abducting the boy but couldn't be found.
For much of the time since, Chekevdia said, the windows of Dobbs' home were blocked off by drawn shades or other items, presumably to prevent anyone from peeking inside.
"I had a firm belief he was in there, and yesterday it was confirmed," Chekevdia said.
Investigators, during a news conference Friday, did not detail what led sheriff's deputies and federal marshals with a search warrant to Dobbs' house Friday, when they found the boy and his mother in a hideaway roughly 5 feet by 12 feet and about the height of a washing machine.
"We let him out of the (patrol) car and he ran around like he'd never seen outdoors. It was actually very sad," Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Stan Diggs said. "He was very happy to be outside. He said he never goes outside."
"Surprisingly," Diggs added, "Ricky is in very good spirits. For someone who's been isolated in that house with no other outside beings, he's a very social, very polite, very talkative little boy."
Dobbs, the grandmother, told the Southern Illinoisan newspaper of Carbondale, Ill., last year that her daughter had been forced into hiding to keep the child from his father. Dobbs called the custody dispute a "nightmare for all of us."
Chekevdia, eager to get his son back in school and to a dentist, said waiting for Ricky to resurface required patience.
"It's hard to sit back and watch things happen when you're used to making things happen," said Chekevdia, a gung-ho military officer who served in Iraq earlier this decade. "But I just bided my time and let the system work."
ST. LOUIS -- A boy allegedly abducted in a custody dispute nearly two years ago has turned up alive, hiding with his mother in a small, specially built secret room at his grandmother's Illinois home, investigators said.
Richard "Ricky" Chekevdia, who turns 7 on Sept. 14, was in good spirits and physically fit after being found Friday by investigators with a court order to search the two-story rural home in southern Illinois' Franklin County, about 120 miles southeast of St. Louis.
The boy's mother, 30-year-old Shannon Wilfong, is charged with felony child abduction. The grandmother, 51-year-old Diane Dobbs, is charged with aiding and abetting. Wilfong remained jailed Saturday on $42,500 bond in Benton, Ill., where Dobbs was being held on $1,000 bond. The women did not have attorneys listed Saturday in online court records.
The boy was staying Saturday with one of his father's relatives while state child-welfare workers investigated claims the father abused the child before his disappearance -- allegations rejected by the dad, who's thrilled the agonizing search has ended.
Two years? You have no idea," Mike Chekevdia, a 48-year-old former police officer who's a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois National Guard, told The Associated Press by telephone Saturday from his house in Royalton, Ill., some three miles from the home where his son turned up. "I've lost sleep. I've lost weight. I've gained weight. I wouldn't wish this on anybody."
After hearing his son had been found, Chekevdia said, "you could have knocked me over with a feather."
Chekevdia won temporary custody of his son shortly before the boy and his mother -- Chekevdia's former girlfriend -- disappeared in November 2007. Chekevdia said he long suspected his son was being stowed by Dobbs, although there were no signs of the boy at her home when it was searched with her consent after his disappearance. Wilfong was charged in December 2007 with abducting the boy but couldn't be found.
For much of the time since, Chekevdia said, the windows of Dobbs' home were blocked off by drawn shades or other items, presumably to prevent anyone from peeking inside.
"I had a firm belief he was in there, and yesterday it was confirmed," Chekevdia said.
Investigators, during a news conference Friday, did not detail what led sheriff's deputies and federal marshals with a search warrant to Dobbs' house Friday, when they found the boy and his mother in a hideaway roughly 5 feet by 12 feet and about the height of a washing machine.
"We let him out of the (patrol) car and he ran around like he'd never seen outdoors. It was actually very sad," Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Stan Diggs said. "He was very happy to be outside. He said he never goes outside."
"Surprisingly," Diggs added, "Ricky is in very good spirits. For someone who's been isolated in that house with no other outside beings, he's a very social, very polite, very talkative little boy."
Dobbs, the grandmother, told the Southern Illinoisan newspaper of Carbondale, Ill., last year that her daughter had been forced into hiding to keep the child from his father. Dobbs called the custody dispute a "nightmare for all of us."
Chekevdia, eager to get his son back in school and to a dentist, said waiting for Ricky to resurface required patience.
"It's hard to sit back and watch things happen when you're used to making things happen," said Chekevdia, a gung-ho military officer who served in Iraq earlier this decade. "But I just bided my time and let the system work."
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Re: Did you all hear/read about this?
This is particularly heinous:
Grrrrrr. The kid is growing up in a cave because mommy wanted to keep him from daddy. I highly, highly doubt daddy was abusing him since he's the one who was awarded custody (and they weren't married, which makes it doubly-"hmmmm" worthy, imo. You all know how hard it is for a (custodial) mom to lose in a court battle.
I did. I felt the headline was misleading, as I immediately thought he was buried behind the wall.
I was just glad to hear the kid was alive and well. It didn't sound like he had been abused at all, and now he is reunited with his dad.
Yes. Not ideal. I think maybe I'm just a little hardened by this board (like LuckyAngel's BM who threatened to kill the kids so no one could have them) and by my own situation in that I'm currently awaiting a court date for a restraining order against BM's abusive druggie boyfriend who she won't protect the kids from.
Actually, that's one reason I posted it. She kind of reminded me of a couple of the BMs who skip around (like SUWife) and do whatever it takes to keep the kid from the dad, regardless of the reason or the consequences. Methinks it had to do more with losing custody and "that (expletive) winning so I'll show him whatfor" than protecting the kid, actually.
I agree with J&A about the headline.
She seriously kept the kid indoors for two years?! That is insane. I hope she goes to jail for a really long time. The whole situation was crazy!?
You don't know both sides, it is a he said/she said thing. If my abusive, indicated child abuser ex were to get custody of DS because of a crappy judge, who knows what I would have done. Unfortunatley, I tend to error on the side of a crappy judge giving an abusive father custody.
I hope I'm wrong, and this guy is a good dad, and this little boy gets to be outside and have a happy home!
I'm "Meh" about the headline. It's factual but yes, misleading. He was found there. He wasn't kept there. The article is a whole other ball of wax, though.
The content is what got to me. And my rather vivid imagination of mom scurrying the boy into the cubby or shushing him any time the Jehovah's Witnesses knocked so he was neither seen nor heard. The bedtime stories about evil daddy coming to take him away from his loving mommy. The nasty judge who doesn't understand a mother's love...
Y'all get the picture. There are any number of stories here of moms poisoning the kids against the dads and stepmoms, kids clinging crying to mom's legs as dad is saying "time to go to our house." This is the same thing, taken to a ridiculous extreme. Poor little guy doesn't know his dad at all, beyond the undoubtedly nasty things he's heard from his mom.
This whole think kinda reminded me of Anne Frank. Just saying.?
I hope the father is a good dad as well. There are battles you can fight that don't involve hiding your son from his father.?
kn, true. But I find it hard to imagine that a judge would take custody from a good mother and give him to an acknowledged abuser. There are so many stories of moms crying abuse because that's the best way to get the kids from the dads.
Illinois (this was Illinois, wasn't it) has a "best interest of the child" standard, which includes a clause on abuse or suspected abuse. Even if he was abusing *her* or got into bar fights or whatever showed a propensity toward violence, he could have/would have lost custody. She cried abuse but couldn't prove anything, from what I would gather. I assume the judge might have held that against her since it also specifies "best interest" as the parent who is more likely to foster a positive relationship with the other parent. https://www.helpyourselfdivorce.com/illinois-child-custody.html
Shorty, I would totally snort if the dad was from Idaho since that is the Neo-Nazi skinhead capital of the nation. Talk about life imitating...life.
I hope for the kid's sake that he is an excellent father and has an excellent extended family. He's been through enough already.
Exactly. We're only getting half the story, and the mom didn't seem to have it out for the kid. They said he was happy and didn't seem fearful.
Yeah. I think I just have sympathy for her since she seems like otherwise she's not an abusive mom.
I think if it were BM in this situation, she'd have them holed up making meth for her and they wouldn't have eaten in days.
I think it depends a lot on the judge, I am in IL. My ex is an INDICATED CHILD abuser, my ex was never convicted, but is on the IL state central registry as a child abuser. (DS had Shaken baby) The oh so wonderful, fair judge (note sarcasim) gave him visitation as any other good normal father would get. I am just skeptical that is all, not that I condone what she has done AT ALL, I just wonder.
Oh well, at least the kid is safe and reunited with his father.