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What should have been a routine visitation with his father, turned into a nightmare for a 
Missouri mother, whose child was kidnapped by the father some sixteen months ago. While the father, Felipe Monroy, had visitation rights to his child, he did not have any custodial rights. After picking his child up for a visit, he went on the run, never bringing the little boy back home to his mother.
The child was recently found quite a distance away from his home in Missouri, he was found in Hyattsville, Maryland. A neighbor spotted the boy and father, and after striking up a conversation with the father, found his story on where the mother was to be unbelievable. She later searched the Center For Missing and Exploited Children’s Website, and found her suspicions to be true as she laid eyes on a picture of Abraham Monroe, the little boy that she had just recently seen. After calling and informing police, they eventually took the boy into custody so he could be returned to his mother, as well as taking the father into custody, whom will likely be charged with parental kidnapping.
While no one can really explain the neighbors strong unsettling feeling that something was just not right, causing her to strike up a conversation with Felipe Monroy in the first place, police are glad that she went with her ”woman’s intuition” and not only spoke with the man, but checked for the boys pictures on the missing children’s website.
While I suppose I am glad that the boy was with his father, instead of being taken by a stranger, it is scary to know that the majority of children whom are abducted are taken by a relative. I am glad that this story has a happy ending, and that the boy and his mother will be reunited. It will be interesting to see if the father will still be allowed to have contact with his son, or if the courts will step in and either restrict his contact or terminate his rights. Perhaps if there was to be stricter and more harsh punishments for parental kidnapping, it would deter more parents from trying to run with their children. Yet on the other side of the coin, there may be instances when the parent is fleeing with their child for safety reasons, and to then lose your rights for trying to protect your child, leaving only the parent whom they were fleeing to care for the child would not be a good thing either.
Any one have any thoughts on what the punishments for parental kidnapping should be? Should parents lose their rights, should they lose visitation, or should jail time, and mandatory supervised visits be enough? I am interested to see different opinions on this subject.
Photo Credit WRC 4 Washington D.C.
I think jail time and mandatory visitation should be enough. Like you said, I would hate to see a parent who was just trying to protect their child end up losing their rights. Then again if the biological father of my daughter kidnapped her I would not feel good about him having any visitation at all, even supervised.
That is a tough one. If my son’s dad kidnapped him, I think jail time would be sufficent and then maybe supervised visitations.