Mother Back With Son, 4, After 3 Years

A San Diego woman was reunited here Wednesday with a 4-year-old son she had not seen in more than three years.

Choking back tears of joy, Joy Powell-Oats later told reporters. “He calls me ‘Mommie.’ He knows who I am.”

Douglas County State’s Atty. David Bartholmew said he checked all the necessary papers to ascertain that the woman was indeed Joy Powell-Oats and that she did have legal custody of her son, Joel Justin Oats.

The woman flew from California to Illinois on Wednesday and met her son at the Tuscola police station. She then held a brief news conference at a local motel.

She posed briefly with Joel, who displayed a big smile and a small stuffed bear. She said she would take Joel back to California to meet his 2-year-old brother, Clayton.

Powell-Oats was separated from her son in July, 1983, when the boy, then 11 months old, allegedly was abducted by his father.

The boy’s father, Jerry Lee Oats, has been charged in California with felony child stealing and failure to appear at a court hearing. He was being held in the Douglas County Jail, and bond was set at $7,500.

Oats, 35, was driving through Tuscola on Monday night with the boy when he was stopped for a broken headlight. A check of Oats’ driver’s license through the National Crime Information Computer revealed that he was wanted in California, and he was taken into custody, police said. The youngster was taken to a foster home.

A police spokesman said Oats lived in Tuscola for about a year, worked in a factory in nearby Arcola, had no local police record and was regarded by neighbors as “a super father. Nobody has anything bad to say about him.”