Mother's child kidnapped by mother-in-law, has GoFundMe page

[VGmaster9]

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8351108/

I have to say that this is beyond fucked up. Just imagine having your child kidnapped and there's little to nothing you can do about it.

[AshleyAshes]

Uhh... This isn't quite passing the sniff test.  I'm like pretty sure that you don't HAVE to travel two states over to have police in that state arrest someone for keeping a child that they don't have legal custody rights to.

So, and this is important, they say 'Mother In Law' but make no mention of custody rights.  Since this is a parent in law, you have to consider the custody rights of the other parent.  I find it weird that there's zero mention of who has custody rights.  Maybe both parents have equal custody rights?  This means that the other parent may not be outside their rights to have custody of the child at the time.  More over, it certainly means that any custody dispute is more complicated and may me that one can not JUST 'have them charged with kidnapping'.

But what I am sure of is that there really aren't police services that when someone is holding a child who they do NOT legally have any custody rights to that then go 'Oh, yeah, no, you gotta make that complaint in PERSON'.  It'd make it a little too easy to sweep a kidnapping victim across state lines and get off scott free.  Though I would believe that should police intervene, they appropriate government agencies may not transport the child home for FREE so funding may still be necessary.

I'm just saying that there are some odd details and inconsistencies in the story presented.

[WileyWarWeasel]

4 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Though I would believe that should police intervene, they appropriate government agencies may not transport the child home for FREE so funding may still be necessary.

That presents an interesting scenario: if the parent/s can't afford to transport the child back or to go to them does the child simply end up in the local foster care system?

[AshleyAshes]

2 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

That presents an interesting scenario: if the parent/s can't afford to transport the child back or to go to them does the child simply end up in the local foster care system?

I imagine facilitating the transportation and sending you a bill and then threatening to send it to collections would be the more likely scenario for a government agency.  I if the parents were too broke to come to the child to retrieve it, I figure the state would send the child with probably someone from children's services or the police to transport the child home.  However I am guessing, I've never had a child kidnapped before, though I think 'put the child in foster care indefinitely' is an unlikely conclusion.

But the crux of this is, that I find it exceptionally weird that the post makes no mention of custody.  I mean, 'Familiar Kidnapping' is not an infrequent thing.  Most amber alerts I see in my area are such abductions.  One parent, for one reason or another, decides that they don't like their custody arrangement and they decide to take matters into their own hands.  And the story makes it clear that 'Such and such child looks like this, suspected to be traveling with this adult who is a parent but does not have full time custody, license plate, car description, last seen picking child up after school' or something like that.

Even if I needed funds to retrieve my child for a situation like this, you can bet my plea would include 'THIS ASSHOLE DOES NOT HAVE CUSTODY AS DECIDED BY THE COURTS BUT HE HAS PLACED HER WITH HIS MOTHER ILLEGALLY' or something like that.  It's just super weird that custody is not mentioned AT ALL.

[WileyWarWeasel]

18 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I imagine facilitating the transportation and sending you a bill and then threatening to send it to collections would be the more likely scenario for a government agency.  I if the parents were too broke to come to the child to retrieve it, I figure the state would send the child with probably someone from children's services or the police to transport the child home.  However I am guessing, I've never had a child kidnapped before, though I think 'put the child in foster care indefinitely' is an unlikely conclusion.

Heh foster care is indeed unlikely, was trying to be facetious. Funnily enough if they transport the child and then bill you with the threat of sending the bill to collections then technically the child is the collateral.

27 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

But the crux of this is, that I find it exceptionally weird that the post makes no mention of custody.  I mean, 'Failure Kidnapping' is not an infrequent thing.  Most amber alerts I see in my area are such abductions.  One parent, for one reason or another, decides that they don't like their custody arrangement and they decide to take matters into their own hands.  And the story makes it clear that 'Such and such child looks like this, suspected to be traveling with this adult who is a parent but does not have full time custody, license plate, car description, last seen picking child up after school' or something like that.

Even if I needed funds to retrieve my child for a situation like this, you can bet my plea would include 'THIS ASSHOLE DOES NOT HAVE CUSTODY AS DECIDED BY THE COURTS BUT HE HAS PLACED HER WITH HIS MOTHER ILLEGALLY' or something like that.  It's just super weird that custody is not mentioned AT ALL.

It sounds like custody is up in the air at the moment.

[Jtrekkie]

I could be wrong, but it reads like the mother in law was Ryuu's mother in law, or the child's grandparent. Grandparents do have rights in some situations, but if that's the case the custody would be less complicated. If she's refusing to bring the child back I think it should be a police matter, though. But they might be trying to avoid that.

 

[Vae]

"Food and drink expenses as well seeing it's 3 starting out, then 4 coming back. Getting there would take around 15 hrs so it would be $75 getting there, and $105 coming back, for bare min. on meals."

Bitch, how much food are you fucking eating? $75 for 15 hours is insane.
I eat about $150 worth of food an entire month.

Also this shit sounds sketch as hell. My friend dealt with her boyfriend's parents withholding her child, and she got hers back immediately.
Unsurprisingly, the police tend to take child abductions pretty fucking seriously.


This whole thing just reads like "I want to take an expensive trip, but I don't want to have to pay for it. Please do it for me."

[AshleyAshes]

23 minutes ago, Jtrekkie said:

I could be wrong, but it reads like the mother in law was Ryuu's mother in law, or the child's grandparent. Grandparents do have rights in some situations, but if that's the case the custody would be less complicated. If she's refusing to bring the child back I think it should be a police matter, though. But they might be trying to avoid that.

Your in laws technically would have no custody rights, though the children of the in laws, that is what I presume is the child's father, would have the right to leave the child with their parents (the child's grandparents) care... But that's assuming the father had legal custody at all.  That's ALSO assuming that, should any legal custody arrangement exist at all, it contain no exceptions or clauses.

But, again, there's literally no information about custody at all and that's just weird if this is supposed to be a KIDNAPPING.

[Victor-933]

1 hour ago, Vae said:

"Food and drink expenses as well seeing it's 3 starting out, then 4 coming back. Getting there would take around 15 hrs so it would be $75 getting there, and $105 coming back, for bare min. on meals."

Bitch, how much food are you fucking eating? $75 for 15 hours is insane.
I eat about $150 worth of food an entire month.

Also this shit sounds sketch as hell. My friend dealt with her boyfriend's parents withholding her child, and she got hers back immediately.
Unsurprisingly, the police tend to take child abductions pretty fucking seriously.


This whole thing just reads like "I want to take an expensive trip, but I don't want to have to pay for it. Please do it for me."

Sounds about right.

My entire childhood was road trips every holiday season, starting out at six hours one way (from south central Texas to the northeastern part of the state, 300 miles) and then progressing to ten hours (3/4 the length of the UK) and then fifteen hours (from Mississipi to Texas) one way. This was a family of five.

We didn't need fucking $75 for food because we just plain didn't stop more than once or twice.

 

And, yeah, the whole story sounds pretty flimsy and there's definitely some critical part of the story that's deliberately being omitted.

[willow]

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The only way we'd be able to charge her for kidnapping is if we try to go down to get her and she denys us, but this means needing to travel 2 states over and this will eat into all our funding for rent, food, utilities, and more.

I'm not a lawyer, but I highly doubt you'd have to physically be denied in order for it to be a legitimate kidnapping case. like if someone fails to produce your child and refuses to give them back to you, that's literally kidnapping already.

Also I think she just wants the money to pay for utilities or something, because I doubt anyone would willingly travel to South Dakota for fun :v

1 hour ago, Vae said:

"Food and drink expenses as well seeing it's 3 starting out, then 4 coming back. Getting there would take around 15 hrs so it would be $75 getting there, and $105 coming back, for bare min. on meals."

Bitch, how much food are you fucking eating? $75 for 15 hours is insane.
I eat about $150 worth of food an entire month.
 

The only way I can see it costing that much is if she's buy $20+ meals every time she stops. Hell, I've been on road trips that lasted days and didn't even spend that much

[Vae]

Hell, we've traveled overnight, a day and a half south, from Colorado to Texas to visit my SO's family,
And I've only spent maybe like $18 on food.

And most of that was a type of beef jerky that I could only find in New Mexico.

That was a fucking treat to myself, not emergency "gotta go rescue my kid" funds.

[AshleyAshes]

Also, does anyone find it weird how EXACTLY priced the entire road trip is?  I can't imagine ANY road trip that is budgeted to the PENNY.

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The gas alone is $148.87 one way, so we're looking at $297.74.

Like, how do you know EXACTLY how gas much is going to cost as the specific gas station you'll be fueling at on the day you go?  And how do you know the price of gas will be the same at any place where you refuel?  Gas pricing is a ballpark guess at best.  Heck, depending on traffic, you may consume more or less gas.  Depending on where you fuel up, prices can vary and taxes vary state to state as well.  You really can't get a penny accurate guess about gas costs on a trip like this.

[VGmaster9]

Well what do you know, the GoFundMe made $75 in only a month.

Also, if you look in the last comment of the journal, it says that her car broke down in the middle of the trip.

[Feelwell]

On the gofundme, the last update was actually a friend drove them back, they sold their car but haven't been paid for it just yet, and they booked a motel for 155 for 2 nights ($75.25/Night in American for a motel? The hell?)

And the child is never mentioned again in any of the posts. Not the welfare of the kid, not any other attempts to get in contact with police, CPS, or the child themselves.

[Socketosis]

How come everyone commenting on that journal isn't slightly suspicious about this whole situation? I mean, I'd expect her to just remove and block them, but still.

[Tsuujou]

4 hours ago, Socketosis said:

How come everyone commenting on that journal isn't slightly suspicious about this whole situation? I mean, I'd expect her to just remove and block them, but still.

Take a quick moment to scroll to the top of the page and look at the site's title banner on the top left.

That should provide a sufficient answer.

[Red Lion]

This is very fishy. 

If the grandmother doesn't have any kind of legal custody then the child should have been returned ASAP. Also, according to https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Ogden,+UT/to/Avon,+SD  driving between Ogden utah and  Avon south dakota, via the interstate, with the current gas prices, should only cost about 

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$84.52 one-way / $169.05 round trip

Even allowing that their gas usage was at measly 20 mpg the cost there AND back only totals too about 222$ while a trip just to get up there is estimated about 111$ (rounding up to the nearest dollar) This is for a distance of about 930 miles. Which is the longest distance between Avon and Ogden according to Google maps. 

Not only did they somehow come out with an exact amount for gas but they still overestimated for the longest possible route and high gas usage. This is a trip that could probably have been made easily with 600$. Say they need roughly 250$ for travel, being very generous with gas usage. That still leaves 350$ for 2 nights at a motel ( a cheap one will run you anywhere between 45-100 a night) and some food. 
Also, if it's so costly and risky for them to go themselves and get the child then why not contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?
 

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The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® intakes reports of missing children, including children who have been abducted, wrongfully retained or concealed by a parent or other family member.

....

Travel assistance

Families in financial need may qualify for transportation at no cost to them once their children are found. Domestic reunification assistance is coordinated by NCMEC and provided through NCMEC’s transportation partners including American Airlines™, Amtrak and Greyhound®. NCMEC’s Victim Reunification Travel Program, offered in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, funds international travel for a missing child’s parent or guardian to attend a custody hearing or be reunited with a child located in another country when the family cannot pay to travel. To learn if you qualify for travel assistance, please call 1-800-THE-LOST® (1-800-843-5678).

http://www.missingkids.com/Reunification
If you have a legitimate kidnapping case and cannot afford to get your child back without help then you do have options. And the NCMEC isn't the only solution. In most cases of wrongful abduction you will be assisted by the law in getting your child back. So, either this parent hasn't bothered to do any research or explore other options or there's something up with the actual legality of the situation that she's not telling us.  


Also this bit.

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. The only way we'd be able to charge her for kidnapping is if we try to go down to get her and she denys us, but this means needing to travel 2 states over 

This is not completely accurate. You can call the police and have an officer go up and tell the mother-in-law to return the child, especially if said mother-in-law is in another state. There are plenty of things you can do short of actually going down in person. 

Side note: If you know you have literally no way of getting your child back on your own,  why send them to another state? I mean even if you trust your relatives you never know what kind of emergency might pop up. 

 

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As an update: i was able to locate an old high school friend whom was able to drive us home and we were able to sell the broken car for $500, though they can only pay that when they sell another vehicle of theirs. My husband agreed to the deal and they SHOULD (keyword) be sending the 500 and, if they do, i can drop down the total to include that amount. it will be a huge help but not only will it not completely take care of bills, we need to receive it first. I'll update this when/if it takes place.
 

This THIS is just stupid. They're implying in the post that they don't even know if the person they sold the car to is good for the money. I have to admit the picture I'm getting of this individual is that they are not very sensible or they're being dishonest. 

 

[Tsuujou]

8 hours ago, Red Lion said:

 they are not very sensible or they're being dishonest. 

 

Or both!

[Pleasure]

The original Nightmare on Elm Street looked more real than this, but giving into this sob story is the real horror movie.

[Wolflich]

3 minutes ago, Pleasure said:

The original Nightmare on Elm Street is more real than this, but nothing is scarier than people giving into this sob story.

Personally I think that could be a summary of gofundme and similar sites in general... although I don't really worry about it because I'm not the one losing anything.