My story began about 11 years ago when I lived in a small town in Texas. I came home after work to find my ex-girlfriend changing the diaper of my then 2 month old daughter. I caught her slapping my little girl. She didn’t notice that I had seen her. But she didn’t do it again, so I didn’t say anything. I had just made up my mind that I was going to take her from my then girlfriend. See she had been unfaithful to me while I would go to work every night. She would have her ex-boyfriend come over while I was gone. I knew she was doing this, but couldn’t prove it.
The next day I was off from work, so I took her to work and dropped her off. I came back to the house we had rented and pack everything I could into my little Nissan Frontier pickup. Most of the stuff was the babies, her crib, clothes, toys, diapers, and some of my clothes and personal stuff. I then took off to my mothers, about 200 miles away. I left most of my own stuff behind. I knew I would never see that stuff again. But I knew I was doing the right thing.
I called my mother to let her know I was coming with the baby. She was happy I was getting her out of there. She never liked my then girlfriend. I arrived at my mothers about 3.5 hours later, relieved. We settled in for the day. I knew it was about to get ugly in a few hours so I began to prepare myself.
Sure enough at 5 pm when I didn’t show up to pick my then girlfriend up from work, she called the sheriffs department in the town I was located and told them I had kidnapped her daughter. She knew where I would go. So the sheriffs dept. showed up at my mothers house ready to arrest me. There was about 5 of them. They banged on the door announcing who they were and called out my name to come out with my hands up. See my ex had told them I wasn’t the father so this was a real kidnapping.
I told them through a window that I was the father and I had proof, and that I was afraid to come out. I didn’t want to get roughed up. One of the deputy sheriffs told me to go ahead and come out with what ever proof that I had and they would sort it out. I told them I was coming out unarmed, but that I was coming out with my daughter in hand and not to hurt us. So I came out and they identified who I was. I showed them a letter from my then girlfriend that she had written me telling me how good a daddy I was and how thankful she was that I was the father of my daughter. Yes, there was some question to that fact when she was born.
They asked if I had a birth certificate with my name on it and I told them no, I wasn’t at the birth, and she and I weren’t sure if we were going to stay together so she didn’t put me on the birth certificate. Luckily I had the letters stating I was the father and they let my daughter stay with me. I would have been crushed if they would have taken her from me.
I told them why I took her, because of the abuse I had witnessed. They instructed me that I would need to file for custody as soon as possible if I wanted to keep her. So they left, ut the hell wasn’t even close to being over. It was just starting.
I had a hard time finding an attorney who would take the case. Most thought I was crazy trying to go against the grain of society. Moms were supposed to have custody of the children, not dads. But I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Then when I would find someone they wanted an ungodly amount of money upfront. I earned $27k a year, I didn’t have any money. I kept looking and finally found an attorney who would take my case with the $1000 I was able to put together. Of course that was just the initial fee, there would be more of course.
The one thing that kept me going was my two month old little girl. Every time I would look at her and she would give me a big grin back, I knew I had to keep fighting for her sake. She was my passion now. I had to do everything I could to protect her from harm.
Everyday I would get calls from the mother, and some guys she would get to call and threaten me. They wanted me to return the baby or I would die. I told them I would die without her, so do your best. Of course they ended up being empty threats, but no one would persuade me to ever give up my baby. I loved her.
I went around to every one I knew and had them write a personal letter of how they thought I was doing taking care of my daughter. I ended up with 52 letters to take to court showing I was a loving and caring father.
My day in court finally arrived, I was so nervous I could barely breath. When it came time for my hearing I noticed the mother was not there. She was nowhere to be found. So they reset it. Damn, I thought I would finally be over.
Another court day came and went and my daughters mother was again a no show. This was starting to cost me a lot of money, money that could be used towards my daughter and us finding our own place to live. I wanted to get out of my mothers home because I was worried someone would show up to do us harm or try to take my daughter.
Christina was such a joy to be around, although only a few months old, she was everything to me. I took her everywhere I went. I never went out at night. I stayed with her 24/7 for the first few months after I had taken her. After about the fourth court hearing where the mother, I mean egg donor, didn’t show up the court finally awarded me sole custody. That was a monumental day. I finally had her. The court gave me a restraining order against her mother. Visitation was awarded, but it would be supervised visitation 2 hours a month.
I arrived at the designated location for the visitation and turned my daughter over to the state worker and waited. She never showed. We tried again on the next visit, another no show. I guess this women did not care whether she saw her daughter again. So the court told me I didn’t have to continue the supervised visitation sessions any longer since it was obvious she would never show.
The only contact I had with this women was the occasional phone call with the occasional threats to kidnap my daughter someday, when I least expected it. Was this women really that dumb, did she really think I would ever let my guard down? I can tell you 12 years later I never have. I have kept a sharp watch out for her and my daughter.
There was one time back in 2004 when my daughters mother made physical contact with us. She knew where I worked and followed me home. I didn’t notice her, but once I got home and went inside there was knock at the door. I looked at my new wife. Yes, I remarried after a few years of dating the one women I decided to date. I told her to take Christina to the back room and I answered the door. It was her.
I became furious. I told her she had no rights here. She wanted to see her daughter, she said. I told her no and to leave or I would call the police. I also told her there was a warrant for non payment of child support. She had never given me a dime. The court had ordered her to pay $475 a month, which she never did. She left, but that night I knew we weren’t safe. She would be back.
The next day was a Saturday and I had opened up a little shop in a flea market. I had to go work it and I took my daughter with me. I wasn’t going to leave her out of my sight. I made a stop at a gun store and bought a 9mm handgun to protect my new family. I had heard stories of Becky, my daughters mother, getting involved with drug people. She had even been arrested for possession of cocaine. So I wasn’t going to take any chance.
I arrived at my little shop and began to open up. Everything was going pretty good. That was until I noticed a couple of trashy guys hanging around the shop, they kept looking at me and my daughter. This set off all kind of alerts. I grabbed my daughter and put her behind me, we were behind the counter. The two guys finally came towards me. One of them asked how old my daughter was. I told them she was 4. They asked me if I was the father. I told them I was. At that time the other guy who wasn’t asking the questions came towards me and he didn’t look like he was coming to shake my hand.
I pulled out my 9mm and told them to get out or I would shoot. The guy who had been doing all the talking said whoa, we just want to talk. I told him to do all the talking from where they are. The guy told me that they were sent to give me a message. The message was that they were going to get my daughter back and if I didn’t want anyone hurt, I’d better hand her over. I reminded them who had the gun drawn and to leave before I start shooting. The guy looked at me like I was stupid or something and turned around and they both left.
After they left I locked up the store and called the police. Of course I didn’t have a surveillance cameras up and running, so the police would only have my word to go by. I called my wife and told her to go to my sisters and wait until I got there. I told her we were going to have to move. It was unsafe for all of us. I knew Becky would try to get her back. What I don’t understand is why she just didn’t try to go through the court. I didn’t have to wait for an answer very long.
I had hired a private investigator to try to find out where she was and to find anything out about her I didn’t know. My investigator came through for me. He had found out she had 4 other kids taken away from her in the state of New Mexico for abuse. She had ever tried to kill one of her own kids. I was dealing with a ticking time bomb and didn’t even know it.
Stay tuned.