A few weeks ago, as Wayne and I were driving home from work, we saw that there was an Amber alert on one of the highway signs over the road we were driving on. It said that a girl had been abducted, and gave a very detailed description of the vehicle she was taken in, license plate included.
By the time we turned on the news that evening the lead story was that the perpetrator had been caught: story on next after the break.
"Good," I thought, "I hope they put that perp in jail."
Then the story came on, and the photo of the suspect was the spitting image of the girl who had been abducted.
It was the girl's noncustodial mother. She had just lost her custody battle the previous week.
Granted, the mom is all of 19 years old, meaning that she would have been 15 when she had her daughter. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why she was not awarded custody. But it still makes me sad that the mother felt impelled to steal her daughter, and that the 4-year-old now thinks her mommy's a criminal. Maybe she is, but it's still sad.
I've seen the same kind of story several times in news. Breaks my heart every time.
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