D.A. Unit Tracking Down Abducted Children

The hardest times came when Jim Moats sat still for too long, when he let himself wonder where his children were, whether they were safe and if he would ever see them again.

That is how he ended up working his way through Texas and Arkansas, handing out fliers at Wal-Marts and two-pump gas stations in a hunt for his estranged wife, who had snatched the two youngsters from their Camarillo home and disappeared.

But when he finally hit pay dirt, finding the children in a one-room trailer along a backwoods Missouri highway nearly four years ago, he still went to the Ventura County district attorney’s Child Abduction and Recovery Unit for help in bringing them back home.

Cutting through a tangle of red tape, D.A. officials were able to bust through a series of legal roadblocks to reunite the youngsters with their father just before Christmas 1994, four months after he last saw them.

“After all the brick walls I was running into, here were people not just doing a job but actually going the extra mile to make things right,� said Moats, 39, who now lives in Paso Robles and who is still reduced to tears when recalling the ordeal.

“They helped give me the best Christmas present of all,� he said. “They brought my kids back to me.�

For the past 12 years, the four-person recovery unit has helped track down hundreds of Ventura County youngsters taken by parents locked in bitter custody battles.

The program deals strictly with parental abductions--which represent the bulk of missing children cases throughout the state and nation--and was the first in California to use an international treaty to retrieve stolen children from Mexico.

But perhaps the program has made its biggest mark in lower-profile cases, earning a reputation statewide for its aggressive efforts to settle disputes between warring parents before they become full-blown abduction cases.

Thousands of phone calls flood the office each year, ranging from parents asking questions about visitation to those whose children have been taken and are nowhere to be found.

In many cases, all it takes is a letter or phone call to settle a dispute. Other times it takes years of investigative work to track down children taken out of state or out of the country.

And sometimes it takes a bit of luck.

That is how the office recently cleared its longest-running case, a 17-year search by Oxnard High School teacher Robert Decker for the son he last saw when the boy was 9 months old.

Decker’s ex-wife, Linda Susan Decker, was arrested last month after authorities received an anonymous tip that she was visiting relatives in a resort area south of Savannah, Ga.

Linda Decker, now Michelle Jones, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday, but that court date was postponed until later this month.

The high-profile case has prompted a flood of new inquiries to the abduction unit. And while members of the unit did not track down the youngster, now 17 years old and living in Wisconsin, they still believe they played a part in helping find him.

“I think we caused that to happen to some extent because of the pressure we put on,� said Dennis Peet, who in his six years as the unit’s lead investigator has helped recover hundreds of youngsters.

“We never quit,� Peet said. “I’m a father, I have three children, and I know how I would feel if my children were missing and people just gave up on them.�

Unit Provides Emotional Support

For parents living the worst nightmare of their lives--those searching in vain for stolen children--the recovery unit provides a patch of high ground in a rising tide of fear and anxiety.

Patricia Hernandez never gave up hope. Although she had not seen her three sons in nearly two years, and her husband vowed she would never see them again, the 33-year-old Oxnard woman believed all along the district attorney’s office one day would help get them back.

The three boys had been abducted by their father and taken to Mexico in the summer of 1993. Hernandez said she turned to the police for help, but there was little the authorities could do. That is when she learned of the recovery unit and asked investigators for help.

“They always told me, ‘You’re going to get them back,’ � Hernandez said. “They told me when you feel lonely, when you feel that you have no support or you just want to cry, give us a call. If I hadn’t had their help, I don’t know if I ever would have seen my kids again.�

Nearly two years after they were taken, authorities located the children in a village in Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Invoking for the first time in California terms of The Hague Convention, an international treaty providing for the recovery and return of children wrongfully hidden in another country, the district attorney’s office worked with Mexican authorities to retrieve the youngsters.

Hernandez joined Peet and another investigator on a trip to bring the children back home in May 1995.

“That was an extremely emotional case,� said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Grossman, who was assigned to the unit at the time. “I remember we were all in tears. It’s a very emotional unit--we cry when they get gone, we cry with the parent and we cry when they come home.�

Hernandez said it took time for the three boys--Ruben, now 14, Andres, 12, and Oscar, 8--to adjust to life back home. Their father was ultimately convicted on the abduction charges and given work furlough, D.A. officials said.

Patricia Hernandez said he has since reestablished a relationship with the children and even takes them on weekends. She said it’s still hard to let them go, but adds that she knows it’s the best thing for the boys.

“It’s hard to trust,� she said. “I still get very emotional, it doesn’t go away. But I always have the [district attorney’s office] if I ever need help again.�

District attorney officials said the Hernandez case shows just how far the recovery unit will go to retrieve abducted children.

But they said it also underscores a basic belief that the welfare of the child is of paramount importance and family reunification often outweighs vigorous prosecution of abductors.

“What we’re really looking at is trying to resolve these cases with the least amount of trauma to the kids and to the family unit,� said Deputy Dist. Atty. Denise Payne, the attorney assigned to the unit. But officials are quick to point out that it would be wrong for any parent to view this as a soft stance.

“Child abduction is a form of child abuse,� Peet said. “Studies show that what kids go through is just horrendous. They’re unable to see their friends, unable to see the other parent. I’ve known kids who have never been able to play outdoors or who have had to ride on the floorboard every time they get in a car.

“And my message for those parents is we don’t quit, we don’t give up. We will find you and we will bring you back and you will be prosecuted.�

Most Counties Now Have a Recovery Unit

Peet and child-recovery specialists Phyllis Pulley and Janet Notaro make up the backbone of the abduction unit.

The program was created in 1986 through state legislation, and nearly every California county now has a similar unit. For fiscal year 1996-97, it cost $450,000 to operate the unit--all of which was reimbursed by state money.

During that fiscal year, the unit fielded 4,600 inquiries, opened 53 cases and recovered 73 children.

When Peet joined the unit six years ago, he said, there were about a dozen outstanding warrants for parents on the run. Today there is only one, and Peet said authorities are zeroing in on the parent in that case.

“They do an incredible job of finding kids,� said Elaine Tumonis, the deputy attorney general in Los Angeles who oversees child abduction units in the region. “It’s an incredibly valuable program and Ventura County is particularly lucky to have so many people working in the unit for so long.�

Notaro has been with the program nearly eight years, Pulley since its inception 12 years ago.

They both are parents. And together they form the front line against child abduction in Ventura County.

They have seen the waiting take its toll on mothers and fathers, on uncles and aunts and grandparents. And they have experienced the jubilation of family members reunited with children after years of waiting for them to come home.

It’s hard not to get attached in this line of work. In fact, Pulley and Notaro say they often receive photos and report cards from children they help reunite with their parents.

“I don’t know what it would be like to have a missing child,� Notaro said. “I don’t think anybody could know that unless they have been there and gone through it. But we try to understand what they are going through.�

For her part, Pulley said the highlight of her 12-year career with the recovery unit came last month when she called Robert Decker and told him his son had been found.

Shrieks of Joy at Good News Recalled

Pulley had developed a long-term relationship with Decker and his mother, Rosemary. In fact, Rosemary Decker would regularly check in to see if any progress had been made in the case.

“I called every month, you bet I did,� the 85-year-old Camarillo resident said. “I wanted to be sure they kept that file open because it’s so easy when you don’t hear a darn thing to close it up and put it away. I think it’s to their credit to have found someone after so long.�

Pulley remembers her heart pounding as she placed the call. And she remembers the shrieks of joy as she broke the news.

“We had this case for so long, and it was really everybody’s case,� she said. “It just shows that we never give up, we don’t let any stone go unturned. Sometimes a case may grow a little cold for a while but then we’re up looking at it again. We have to get these children back. What else can we do?�

That’s exactly how Jim Moats felt when he left Camarillo nearly four years ago to hunt for his son and daughter.

He had spent days sitting in his living room, the blinds drawn and his mind racing like mad.

“You just feel real empty,� he said. “It’s kind of like you’re put in the middle of the desert and you don’t know anything around you. You have no idea where you are or what to do.�

So Moats did the only thing he could. Joined by his mother, he jumped in his pickup truck and headed to towns where his ex-wife had relatives.

And when he edged into Missouri, he said he just happened to stop at a two-pump gas station where he asked the owner to hang a flier. A couple of locals immediately recognized the woman on the flier as Moats’ ex-wife.

Moats eventually learned the children--13 and 10 at the time--were not in school and rarely ventured outdoors. His son’s hair had been styled and dyed in an apparent attempt to pass him off as a girl, Moats said.

The youngsters no longer see their mother, though Moats said it will ultimately be up to them whether to reestablish that relationship.

“I never even knew this kind of thing existed,� he said. “I knew there were kids who would get kidnapped by strangers, but I never knew that parents would do this. I say no matter how angry you are at each other, leave the kids completely out of it. It’s not fair to them, not fair at all.�