Who's The Villain Here? -

It was interesting to read the story yesterday of the LA teen who solved his own kidnapping by Googling his name for a class project.

His mother took him 14 years ago, as in many such cases, because the unthinkable happened: her ex-husband got custody:

"They were taking her child away, and she did what she had to do," said Goudreault's sister-in-law, Melissa Goudreault of Alberta, where the boy was living when he was snatched.

No, ma'am - she broke the law and deprived the child of his relationship with his father - a relationship that the courts in Canada, must have valued to an almost supernatural extent; fathers win custody in Canadian courts every bit as rarely as they do in the US.

Police said the boy's father in Red Deer, Alberta, had been granted sole custody of his son. But on a court-ordered weekend visit in 1989, Goudreault fled with the little boy, cops said.

Goudreault took the child on the lam to Mexico before settling in the Los Angeles area in 1995, police said.

Now, here's the part that frosts me; I just saw the piece on this story on the Today show.

The piece mentioned the basic facts - the Googling, the kidnapping itself. It then spent a long time going over what a wonderful person the neighbors thought she was, the two jobs she supposedly worked to get by, yadda yadda...

Unmentioned: She had illegally kidnapped her son, and deprived the boy of any chance of growing up with a father, to say nothing of the fact that his father had custody.

Police said the teen was upset his mother had been jailed. His grandmother said he may not want to return to Canada to be reunited with his father.

Fourteen years of brainwashing'll do that.

The father, Rodney Steinmann, 43, said he'd love to see his son. "I just think about him," Steinmann told the Edmonton Sun. "A conversation with him is a long time overdue. It would be a relief to ask him if he's okay."

Watch for the media - some parts of it - to portray this woman as some sort of folk hero, to manipulate peoples' sympathies. Watch for feminists to dredge up stories of abuse (conveniently without evidence). As the mother goes through what'll be a long, drawn-out extradition hearing, watch who's put on trial in the media.

I'm so mad could scream right now.

Posted by Mitch at February 19, 2004 07:46 AM