Amazing! Motherly instinct solves abduction

[Shainie]

In a nutshell - a lady on vacation in Belize was suspicious of a man who had a 4 year old boy with him, so she had her husband take a picture of her while the man was in the background . .. they got home, she looked at a missing children's website and saw the little boy and also a picture of the man who was the boys's father - who abducted the boy. Really amazing!

Motherly instinct solves abduction
Jon Tevlin, Star Tribune
March 30, 2004KID0330

The boy they called Jake seemed happy and in good health, even though he was the only child hanging around at the Coconut Caribbean Hotel in Belize's Ambergris Caye.

His father was friendly, even taking time to recommend elk hunting adventures in Texas to some Minnesota tourists.

But Barb Quinlan, an Oak Park Heights resident vacationing in Belize with her fiancé in January, had a feeling something was wrong.

"It was kind of bizarre," she said. "Maybe it's motherly instinct; you just kind of know these things."

Her instinct was right.

David Clenney has been charged with abducting Jake, 4, on July 26, and taking him to Belize via Cancun, Mexico, allegedly using forged documents. Because of Quinlan's suspicions -- and some crafty photography -- Jake Clenney was reunited Thursday with his mother, Heather Clenney in Belize.

The snapshot that helped authorities find a missing childCourtesy Of Barb QuinlanMother and son returned home to San Angelo,Texas, on Friday.

Jacob Clenney "is right back at it, playing with his sister and acting like he never left," said his mother, who called Quinlan on Monday to thank her for finding the boy.

Special Agent Bill Endorf of the San Angelo FBI office accompanied Heather Clenney to Belize and arrested her former husband, who made his first appearance Monday in Tom Green District Court in San Angelo on charges of international parental kidnapping. He has not yet been appointed an attorney, Endorf said.

Barb QuinlanJeff WheelerStar Tribune"Barbara is the real hero in this case," Endorf said. "If not for her, this kid doesn't see his mother again, maybe ever."

David and Heather Clenney were divorcing. Under court orders, Jake lived with each parent for two weeks at a time, an arrangement that seemed to work until the boy and his father disappeared.

"Relations were pretty good and everything," Heather Clenney said. "I had no clue he was planning to take him."

But Endorf said the plan must have been in the works long enough for David Clenney to allegedly forge a passport and documents that appeared to give him permission to leave the country with the child.

They disappeared in late July or August, and Heather Clenney hadn't heard a word from them since. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children put pictures of Jake and David Clenney on its Web site (missingkids.com), and it noted that the two might be in Dallas or Kansas City. Heather Clenney said she had no reason to suspect that they had left the country.

There are about 1,100 open cases of foreign child abduction, said Kathy Ruckman, supervising attorney, international division for the missing children center. Fifty-three countries, including Belize, are part of a Hague Convention law that mandates international cooperation in such cases, she said.

But catching abductors is rare. "We had one case similar to this one," Ruckman said. "A law student on vacation in Mexico actually had one of the fliers with missing children, and recognized the man and his kids."

Quinlan, who spent nine days in Belize, became suspicious of the Clenneys almost immediately. "He was the only white little boy on the island," she said. "There was no wife or mother around, and they said they had been there for a year. [David] was with another woman, but Jake called her Carol, so I didn't think it was his mom. But Jake was well dressed, and his father wasn't mean to him or anything."

Still, Quinlan worried.

"I told my fiancé [Murray Kadel] that I thought something was funny," Quinlan said. "He said I was crazy."

But as the week wore on, Quinlan became more convinced. When Kadel saw Jake up late with his dad at Lucifer's Lounge in the hotel, he became suspicious, too.

"There was a Super Bowl party one night, and Jake was there. You just don't have kids up at a bar at 11 at night," said Quinlan, who has a grown daughter. "I've been divorced, too, so I kind of sensed a problem."

So Quinlan decided to have Kadel take a picture. She stood near Clenney and told her fiancé to pretend to focus on her, but to actually focus on the man behind her in the Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap.

Quinlan's amateur sleuthing would not have been possible a few years ago without digital cameras and the Internet.

The couple returned home in early February, and Quinlan printed her photos. But she didn't know whom to call about her suspicions. When a flier arrived in the mail with pictures of missing kids on it, she saw a Web address for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"He said they were from Texas, so I looked for missing kids from Texas in the last year," Quinlan said. "There were only seven."

One was Jacob Clenney. There was also a picture of his father that perfectly matched her photograph of the man in the Hawaiian shirt.

"I screamed: Murray, come here, it's them!" she said.

Quinlan called the Center for Missing Children and the Runnels County Sheriff's Department in Texas and sent them the picture. Authorities took Quinlan's photo to Heather Clenney in mid-February and began planning the trip to Belize. They had to go through the U.S. State Department and be approved with Belize officials.

Heather Clenney accompanied Endorf and another FBI agent as they arrested David Clenney and returned Jacob to his mother.

"He was very nervous, very scared," his mother said. "He hugged me and put his head on my shoulder. He was a little dirty but nothing a hot bath couldn't take care of."

Endorf said the case is an amazing one. "For [Quinlan] to be on vacation and to have those instincts, take the photos and then follow up when she got home is incredible. Except for Barb being alert, he would have gotten off scot-free."

[Mouse7088]

OH WOW!!!! THIS is exactly what can happen when people get involved...yes it may not always work out like this, but it's definitely worth the chance. I can't imagine ever being able to fully stress how grateful I'd be if this were my child. BIG hats off to Barbara!

[whitequeen96]

What a wonderful story!