The State - News from March 24, 1987

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the trial of Betty Lou Batey on child-stealing charges. Without comment, the court refused to hear an appeal by the woman that criminal proceedings against her amounted to double jeopardy because they had been addressed in an earlier civil case arising from the same incident. Batey was cited for contempt of court by a San Diego Superior Court judge in October, 1984, because she took her son, Brian, now 16, out of California without the court’s permission in 1982. She took the boy, she said, because custody had been given to the father, who lives with a male lover. She lived in Texas and Colorado during the time, eluding the FBI for 19 months.